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ah 
Bi | 


CHAPEL HILL 


ii ii il 7 


This book is due an the V WALTE Re DAVIS > LIBRARY: re 
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be renewed by bringing it to the library. 


RETURNED 


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Form No 513, 
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iDye 


BREAD GIVERS 


Books by Anzia Yezierska 
KK HK 


BREAD GIVERS 
CHILDREN OF LONELINESS 
HUNGRY HEARTS 
SALOME OF THE TENEMENTS 


BREAD GIVERS 


A' NOVEL 


BY 
ANZIA YEZIERSKA 


A struggle between a father of the 
Old World and a daughter 
of the New 


GARDEN CITY | NEW YORK 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1925 


COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE 
& COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE 
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. ¥. 


TO 
CLIFFORD SMYTH 


TO WHOSE UNDERSTANDING CRITICISM 
AND INSPIRATION I OWE MORE 
THAN I CAN EVER EXPRESS 


ir : 
A oe, 
‘te A 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


BOOK I 
HESTER STREET 


Hester STREET 

Tue SPEAKING MouTH OF THE Bidce: 

Tue Burpen BEARER . 

Tue “EMPTY-HEAD” 

Morris LipKiIn WRITES Bose 

Tue Burpen Bearer CHANGES HER Bure 
SOME BOSE IRIS Ne ea ee Beha 

FatHerR Becomes a Business Man _ IN 
AMERICA . 

Tue Harp Evanrt 

BREAD GIVERS 


BOOK II 
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 


1 Saut THE Door 

A Piece or Meat 
My SIsTers AND [I 
QuTCAST 

A Man Ry tern Mr 
On anp ON—ALONE . 


COLLEGE 


vii 


Vill 


CONTENTS 
BOOK III 
THE NEW WORLD 


My Honeymoon with MyseEtr 
DeatH IN HESTER STREET 


EopcE| VIGNE Mi fe eee oP ee 


Huco SEELIG HOE Mabey | >A 


Man Born oF WoMAN |, , 


BREAD GIVERS 


CHAPTER I 
HESTER STREET 


HAD just begun to peel the potatoes for dinner 
| when my oldest sister Bessie came in, her eyes 
far away and very tired. She dropped on the 
bench by the sink and turned her head to the 
wall. 

One look at her, and I knew she had not yet found 
work. I went on peeling the potatoes, but I no more 
knew what my hands were doing. I felt only the 
dark hurt of her weary eyes. 

I was about ten years old then. But from always 
it was heavy on my heart the worries for the house 
as if I was mother. I knew that the landlord came 
that morning hollering for the rent. And the whole 
family were hanging on Bessie’s neck for her wages. 
Unless she got work soon, we’d be thrown in the 
street to shame and to laughter for the whole 
world. 

I already saw all our things kicked out on the side- 
walk like a pile of junk. A plate of pennies like a 


I 


2 BREAD GIVERS 


beggar’s hand reaching out of our bunch of rags. 
Each sigh of pity from the passers-by, each penny 
thrown into the plate was another stab into our burn- 
ing shame. 

Laughter and light footsteps broke in upon my 
dark thoughts. I heard the door open. 

“Give a look only on these roses for my hat,” 
cried Mashah, running over to the looking glass over 
the sink. With excited fingers she pinned pink 
paper roses under the brim. ‘Then, putting on her 
hat again, she stood herself before the cracked, fly- 
stained mirror and turned her head first on this side 
and then on the other side, laughing to herself with 
the pleasure of how grand her hat was. “Like a 
lady from Fifth Avenue I look, and for only ten 
cents, from a pushcart on Hester Street.” 

Again the door opened, and with dragging feet my 
third sister Fania came in. Bessie roused herself 
from the bench and asked, “Nu? Any luck with 
your”’ 

“Half the shops are closed,” replied Fania. 
“They say the work can’t start till they got a new 
president. And in one place, in a shirt factory, 
where they had a sign, ‘Girls Wanted,’ there was such 
a crowd of us tearing the clothes from our bodies 
and scratching out each other’s eyes in the mad push- 
ings to get in first, that they had to call two fat 
policemen with thick clubs to make them stand still 
on a line for their turn. And after we waited for 
hours and hours, only two girls were taken ” 


HESTER STREET 3 


Mashah looked up from the mirror. 

*Didn’t I tell you not to be such a yok and kill 
yourself pushing on a line a mile long, when the shop 
itself couldn’t hold those that were already on the 
doorstep? All the time that you were wasting your- 
self waiting to get in, I walked myself through the 
stores, to look for a trimming for my hat.” 

‘You heartless thing!” cried Bessie. ‘“‘ No wonder 
Father named you ‘Empty-head.’ Here you go to 
look for work, and you come back with pink roses for 
your doll face.” 

Undisturbed by the bitter words, Mashah finished 
the last stitch and then hung up her hat carefully over 
the door. 

“Tm going to hear the free music in the park to- 
night,” she laughed to herself, with the pleasure be- 
fore her, “and these pink roses on my hat to match 
out my pink calico will make me look just like the 
picture on the magazine cover.”’ 

Bessie rushed over to Mashah’s fancy pink hat as 
if to tear it to pieces, but instead, she tore her own 
old hat from her head, flung it on the floor, and kicked 
it under the stove. 

Mashah pushed up her shoulders and turned back 
to the mirror, taking the hairpins carefully from her 
long golden hair and fixing it in different ways. “‘It 
ain't my fault if the shops are closed. If I take my 
lunch money for something pretty that I got to have, 
it don’t hurt you none.” 

Worry or care of any kind could never get itself 


4 | BREAD GIVERS 


into Mashah’s empty head. Although she lived in 
the same dirt and trouble with us, nothing ever 
bothered her. 

Everywhere Mashah went men followed her with 
melting looks. And these melting looks in men’s 
eyes were like something to eat and something to 
drink to her. Sothat she could go without her lunch 
money to buy pretty things for herself, and not starve 
like the rest of us. 

She was no more one of us than the painted lady 
looking down from the calendar on the wall. Father’s 
preaching and Mother’s cursing no more bothered her 
than the far-away noise from the outside street. 

When Mashah walked in the street in her everyday 
work dress that was cut from the same goods and 
bought from the same pushcart like the rest of us, it 
looked different on her. Her clothes were always so 
new and fresh, without the least little wrinkle, like 
the dressed-up doll lady from the show window of the 
grandest department store. Like from a born queen 
it shined from her. ‘The pride in her beautiful face, 
in her golden hair, lifted her head like a diamond 
crown. 

Mashah worked when she had work; but the 
minute she got home, she was always busy with her 
beauty, either retrimming her hat, or pressing her 
white collar, or washing and brushing her golden 
hair. She lived in the pleasure she got from her 
beautiful face, as Father lived in his Holy Torah. 

Mashah kept part of her clothes in a soapbox under 


HESTER STREET F 


the bed. Everything in it was wrapped around with 
newspapers to keep the dirt out. She was so smart 
in keeping her things in perfect order that she could 
push out her box from under the bed in the middle of 
the dark night and know exactly where to put her 
hand to find her thin lace collar, or her handkerchief, 
or even her little beauty pin for the neck of her shirt- 
waist. | 

High up with a hanger, on a nail nearly to the ceil- 
ing, so that nobody’s dirty hands should touch it, 
hung Mashah’s white starched petticoat, and over it 
her pink calico; and all around them, an old sheet was 
tacked about with safety pins so she could tell if any- 
body touched it. 

It was like a law in the house that nobody dared 
touch Mashah’s things, no more than they dared 
touch Father’s Hebrew books, or Mother’s precious 
jar of jelly which she always kept ready for company, 
even in the blackest times, when we ourselves had 
nothing to eat. 7 

Mashah came home with stories that in rich 
people’s homes they had silver knives and forks, sepa- 
rate, for each person. And new-ironed tablecloths 
and napkins every time they ate onthem. And rich 
people had marble bathtubs in their own houses, 
with running hot and cold water all day and night 
long so they could take a bath any time they felt 
like it, instead of having to stand on a line before the 
public bath-house, as we had to do when we wanted a 
bath for the holidays. But these millionaire things 


6 BREAD GIVERS 


were so far over our heads that they were like fairy 
tales. 

That time when Mashah had work hemming towels 
in an uptown house, she came home with another 
new-rich idea, another money-spending thing, which 
she said she had to have. She told us that by those 
Americans, everybody in the family had a tooth- 
brush and a separate towel for himself, “not like by 
us, where we use one torn piece of a shirt for the whole 
family, wiping the dirt from one face on to another.”’ 

“‘Empty-head!”’ cried Mother. ‘You don’t own 
the dirt under their doorstep and you want to play 
the lady.” 

But when the day for the wages came, Mashah 
quietly went to the Five and Ten Cent Store and 
bought, not only a toothbrush and a separate towel 
for herself, but even a separate piece of soap. 

Mother tore her hair when she found that Mashah 
made a leak of thirty cents in wages where every cent 
had been counted out. But Mashah went on brush- 
ing her teeth with her new brush and wiping her face 
with her new towel. And from that day, the sight of 
her toothbrush on the shelf and her white, fancy 
towel by itself on the wall was like a sign to us all, 
that Mashah had no heart, no feelings, that mil- 
lionaire things willed themselves in her empty head, 
while the rest of us were wearing out our brains for 
only a bite in the mouth. 

As Mother opened the door and saw all my sisters 
home, the market basket fell from her limp arm. 


HESTER STREET 7 


“Still yet no work?” : She wrung her hands. 
**Six hungry mouths to feed and no wages coming in.”’ 
She pointed to her empty basket. “They don’t 
want to trust me any more. Not the grocer, not the 
butcher. And the landlady is tearing from me my 
flesh, hollering for the rent.” 

Hopelessly, she threw down her shawl and turned 
to me. “Did you put the potatoes on to boil?” 
Then her eyes caught sight of the peelings I had left 
in the sink. | 

“Gazlin! Bandit!” her cry broke through the 
house. She picked up the peelings and shook them 
before my eyes. ‘“‘You’d think potatoes grow free 
in the street. I eat out my heart, running from 
pushcart to pushcart, only to bargain down a penny 
on five pounds, and you cut away my flesh like a 
murderer.” 

I felt so guilty for wasting away so much good eat- 
ing, I had to do something to show Mother how 
sorry I was. It used to be my work to go out early, 
every morning, while it was yet dark, and hunt 
through ash cans for unburned pieces of coal, and 
search through empty lots for pieces of wood. But 
that morning, I had refused to do it any more. It 
made me feel like a beggar and thief when anybody 
saw me. 

*‘I’d sooner go to work in a shop,’ I cried. 

“Who'll give you work when you’re so thin and 
small, like a dried-out herring!” 

“But I’m not going to let them look down on me 


g BREAD GIVERS 


like dirt, picking people’s ashes.”’ And I cried and 
cried so, that Mother couldn’t make me do it. 

But now, I quietly took the pail in my hand and 
slipped out. I didn’t care if the whole world looked 
onme. Iwas going to bring that coal to Mother even 
if it killed me. 

“You've got to do it! You’ve got to!” I kept 
talking to myself as I dug my hand into the ashes. 
“Vm not athief. I’m not athief. It’s only dirt to 
them. Andit’safiretous. Let them laugh at me.” 
And IJ did not return home till my pail was full of 
coal. 

It was now time for dinner. I was throwing the 
rags and things from the table to the window, on the 
bed, over the chairs, or any place where there was 
room for them. So much junk we had in our house 
that everybody put everything on the table. It was 
either to eat on the floor, or for me the job of cleaning 
off the junk pile three times a day. The school 
teacher’s rule, “A place for everything, and every- 
thing in its place,”’ was no good for us, because there 
weren’t enough places. 

As the kitchen was packed with furniture, so the 
front room was packed with Father’s books. They 
were on the shelf, on the table, on the window sill, 
and in soapboxes lined up against the wall. 

When we came to America, instead of taking along 
feather beds, and the samovar, and the brass pots 
and pans, like other people, Father made us carry his 
books. When Mother begged only to take along her 


HESTER STREET 9 


pot for gefulie fish, and the two feather beds that were 
handed down to her from her grandmother for her 
wedding presents, Father wouldn't let her. 

“Woman!” Father said, laughing into her eyes. 
“What for will you need old feather beds? Don’t 
you know it’s always summer in America? And in 
the new golden country, where milk and honey flows 
free in the streets, you'll have new golden dishes to 
cook in, and not weigh yourself down with your old 
pots and pans. But my books, my holy books al- 
ways were, and always will be, the light of the world. 
You'll see yet how all America will come to my feet 
to learn.”’ 

No one was allowed to put their things in Father’s 
room, any more than they were allowed to use 
Mashah’s hanger. 

Of course, we all knew that if God had given 
Mother a son, Father would have permitted a man 
child to share with him his best room in the house. 
A boy could say prayers after his father’s death— 
that kept the father’s soul alive for ever. Always 
Father was throwing up to Mother that she had borne 
him no son to be an honour to his days and to say 
prayers for him when he died. 

The prayers of his daughters didn’t count because 
God didn’t listen to women. Heaven and the next 
world were only for men. Women could get into 
Heaven because they were wives and daughters of 
men. Women had no brains for the study of God’s 
Torah, but they could be the servants of men who 


10 BREAD GIVERS 


studied the Torah. Only if they cooked for the men, 
and washed for the men, and didn’t nag or curse the 
men out of their homes; only if they let the men 
study the Torah in peace, then, maybe, they could 
push themselves into Heaven with the men, to wait 
on them there. 

And so, since men were the only people who 
counted with God, Father not only had the best 
room for himself, for his study and prayers, but also 
the best eating of the house. ‘The fat from the soup 
and the top from the milk went always to him. 

Mother had just put the soup pot and plates for 
dinner on the table, when Father came in. 

At the first look on Mother’s face he saw how she 
was boiling, ready to burst, so instead of waiting for 
her to begin her hollering, he started: 

“Woman! when will you stop darkening the 
house with your worries?’’ 

“When Ill have a man who does the worrying. 
Does it ever enter your head that the rent was not 
paid the second month? ‘That to-day we’re eating 
the last loaf of bread that the grocer trusted me?” 
Mother tried to squeeze the hard, stale loaf that no- 
body would buy for cash. ‘“‘You’re so busy working 
for Heaven that I have to suffer here such bitter 
hell.”’ 

(We sat down to the table. With watering mouths 
and glistening eyes we watched Mother skimming 
off every bit of fat from the top soup into Father’s 
big plate, leaving for us only the thin, watery part. 


HESTER STREET II 


We watched Father bite into the sour pickle which 
was special for him only; and waited, trembling with 
hunger, for our portion, / 

Father made his prayer, thanking God for the food. 
Then he said to Mother: 

“What is there to worry about, as long as we have 
enough to keep the breath in our bodies? But the 
real food is God’s Holy Torah.”” He shook her gently 
by the shoulder, and smiled down at her. 

At Father’s touch Mother’s sad face turned into 
smiles. His kind look was like the sun shining on 
her. 

**Shenah!” he called her by her first name, to show 
her he was feeling good. ‘“‘I’ll tell you a story that 
will cure you of all your worldly cares.”’ 

All faces turned to Father. Eyes widened, necks 
stretched, ears strained not to miss a word. , The 
meal was forgotten as he began: 

“Rabbi Chanina Ben Dosa was a starving, poor 
man who had to live on next to nothing. Once, 
his wife complained: ‘We’re so good, so pious, you 
give up nights and days in the study of the Holy 
Torah. Then why don’t God provide for you at 


least enough to eat?’ . . ‘Riches you want?’ 
said Rabbi Chanina Ben Deen ‘All right, woman. 
You shall have your wish.’ . . . That very 


evening he went out into the fields to pray. Soon 
the heavens opened, and a Hand reached down to 
him and gave him a big chunk of gold. He brought 
it to his wife, and said: ‘Go buy with this all the 


12. BREAD GIVERS 


luxuries of the earth.” . . . She was sohappy, 
as she began planning all she would buy next day. 
Then she fell asleep. And in her dream, she saw 
herself and her husband sitting with all the saints in 
Heaven. Each couple had a golden table between 
themselves. When the Good Angel put down for 
them their wine, their table shook so that half of it 
was spilled. ‘Then she noticed that their table had a 
leg missing, and that is why it was so shaky. And 
the Good Angel explained to her that the chunk of 
gold that her husband had given her the night before 
was the missing leg of their table. As soon as she 
woke up, she begged her husband to pray to God to 
take back the gold he had giventhem. . . . ‘I'll 
be happy and thankful to live in poverty, as long as I 
know that our reward will be complete in Heaven.’”’ 

Mother licked up Father’s every little word, like 
honey. Her eyes followed his shining eyes as he 
talked. 

“Nu, Shenah?”’ He wagged his head. ‘Do you 
want gold on earth, or wine of Heaven?” 

“I’m only a sinful woman,” Mother breathed, 
gazing up at him. Her fingers stole a touch of his 
hand, as if he were the king of the world. ‘“‘God be 
praised for the little we have. I’m willing to give up 
all my earthly needs for the wine of Heaven with you. 
But, Mozisheh’’—she nudged him by the sleeve— 
““God gave us children. They have a life to live yet, 
here, on earth. Girls have to get married. People 
point their fingers on me—a daughter, twenty-five 


HESTER STREET 13 


years already, and not married yet. And no dowry 
to help her get married.” 

“Woman! Stayin your place!” His strong hand 
pushed her away from him. ‘You're smart enough 
to bargain with the fish-peddler. But I’m the head of 
this family. I give my daughters brains enough to 
marry when their time comes, without the worries of a 
dowry.” 

“Nu, you're the head of the family.” Mother’s 
voice rose in anger. ‘“‘But what will you do if your 
books are thrown in the street?” 

At the mention of his books, Father looked up 
quickly. 

“What do you want me to do?” 

“Take your things out from the front room to the 
kitchen, so I could rent your room to boarders. If 
we don’t pay up the rent very soon, we'll all be in the 
street.” 

“I have to have a room for my books. Where 
will I put them?” 

“Tl push my things out from under the bed. 
And you can pile up your books 1n the window to the 
top, because nothing. but darkness comes through 
that window, anyway. I’ll do anything, work the 
nails off my fingers, only to be free from the worry 
for rent.” 

“But where will I have quiet for my studies in this 
crowded kitchen? I have to be alone in a room to 
think with God.” 


“Only millionaires can be alone in America. By 


14 BREAD GIVERS 


Zalmon the fish-peddler, they’re squeezed together, 
twelve people, in one kitchen. The bedroom and 
the front room his wife rents out to boarders. If I 
could cook their suppers for them, I could even earn 
yet a few cents from their eating.” | 

“Woman! Have your way. Take in your board- 
ers, only to have peace in the house.”’ 

The next day, Mother and I moved Father’s table 
and his chair with a back, and a cushion to sit on, 
into the kitchen. 

We scrubbed the front room as for a holiday. 
Even the windows were washed. We pasted down 
the floppy wall paper, and on the worst part of the 
wall, where the plaster was cracked and full of holes, 
we hung up calendars and pictures from the Sunday 
newspapers. 

Mother sent me to Muhmenkeh, the herring 
woman on the corner, for the loan of a feather bed. 
She came along to help me carry it. 

“Long years on you!” cried Mother, as she took 
the feather bed from Muhmenkeh’s arm. 
~ “Long years and good luck on us all!” Muh- 
menkeh answered. 

Muhmenkeh worked as hard for the pennies as 
anybody on the block. But her heart was big with 
giving all the time from the little she had. She 
didn’t have the scared, worried look that pinched 
and squeezed the blood out of the faces of the poor. 
It breathed from her the feeling of plenty, as if she 
had Rockefeller’s millions to give away. 


HESTER STREET 15 


“You could charge your boarders twice as much for 
the sleeping, if you give them a bed with springs, 
instead of putting the feather bed on the floor,” said 
Muhmenkeh. 

‘Don’t I know that a bed with a spring is a good 
thing? But you have to have money for it.” 

**T got an old spring in the basement. [Ill give it 
to you.” 

‘But the spring needs a bed with feet.” 

“Do as I done. Put the spring over four empty 
herring pails and you'll have a bed fit for the presi- 
dent. Now put aboard over the potato barrel, and a 
clean newspaper over that, and you'll have a table. 
All you need yet is a soapbox for a chair, and you'll 
have a furnished room complete.” 

Muhmenkeh’s bent old body tottered around on 
her lame foot, as she helped us. Even Mother for- 
got for a while her worries, so like a healing medicine 
was Muhmenkeh’s sunshine. 

“Ach!” sighed Mother, looking about the fur- 
nished room complete, “‘God should only send a man 
for Bessie, to marry herself in good luck.” 
| “Here’s your chance to get a man for her without 
the worry for a dowry. If God is good, he might yet 
send you a rich boarder « 

From the kitchen came Father’s voice chanting: 

“When the poor seek water, and there is none, and 
their tongue fatleth for thirst, I, the Lord, will hear 
them. I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.” 

Mother put her hand over Muhmenkeh’s mouth to 


16 BREAD GIVERS 


stop her talking. Silent, breathless, we peeked in 
through the open crack in the door. The black satin 
skullcap tipped on the side of his head set off his red 
hair and his long red beard. And his ragged satin 
coat from Europe made him look as if he just stepped 
out of the Bible. His eyes were raised to God. His 
two white hands on either side of the book, his whole 
body swaying with his song: 

“And I will bring the blind by a way that they know 
not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; 
I will make darkness light before them, and crooked 
things straight. These things will I do unto them and 
not forsake them.” 

Mother’s face lost all earthly worries. Forgotten 
were beds, mattresses, boarders, and dowries. Fath- 
er’s holiness filled her eyes with light. 

*“*Is there any music on earth like this?’”’? Mother 
whispered to Muhmenkeh. 

*“Who would ever dream that in America, where 
everything is only business and business, in such a 
lost corner as Hester Street lives such a fine, such a 
pure, silken soul as Reb Smolinsky?”’ 

““Tf he was only so fit for this world, like he is fit 
for Heaven, then I wouldn’t have to dry out the 
marrow from my head worrying for the rent.”’ 

His voice flowed into us deeper and deeper. We 
couldn’t help ourselves. We were singing with him: 

** Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break 
forth into singing, O mountains; for the Lord hath com- 
forted his people.” 


HESTER STREET 17) 


Suddenly, it grew dark before our eyes. The col- 
lector lady from the landlord! We did not hear her 
till she banged open the door. Her hard eyes glared 
at Father. 

“My rent!” she cried, waving her thick diamond 
fingers before Father’s face. But he didn’t see her 
or hear her. He went on chanting: 

“Awake! Awake! Put on strength, O arm of the 
Lord: Awake, as in ancient days, in the generations of 
old. Art thou not he that hath cut Rahab and wounded 
the dragon?” 

“Schnorrer!” shrieked the landlady, her fat face 
red with rage. “My rent!” 

Father blinked his eyes and stared at the woman 
with a far-off look. “What isit? What do you want?” 

“Don’t you know me? MHaven’t I come often 
enough? Myrent! Myrent! My rent I want!” 

*‘Oh-h, your rent?”’ Father met her angry glare 
with an innocent smile of surprise. “‘Your rent? 
As soon as the girls get work, we'll pay you out, little 
by little.” 

“Pay me out, little by little! The cheek of those 
dirty immigrants! A fool I was, giving them a 
chance another month.” 

‘“‘But we haven’t the money.” His voice was kind 
and gentle, as hers was rough and loud. 

“Why haven’t you the money for rent?” she 
shouted. 

“The girls have been out of work.” Father’s 
innocent look was not of this earth. 


18 BREAD GIVERS 


“‘Hear him only! The dirty do-nothing! Go to 
work yourself! Stop singing prayers. Then you'll 
have money for rent!” She took one step towards 
him and shut his book with such anger that it fell at 
her feet. 

Little red threads burned out of Father’s eyes. 
He rose slowly, but quicker than lightning flashed his 
hand. 

A scream broke through the air. Before we had 
breath enough to stop him, Father slapped the lan- 
lady on one cheek, then on the other, till the blood 
rushed from her nose. 

“You painted piece of flesh!” cried Father. “T’ll 
teach you respect for the Holy Torah!” 

Screaming, the landlady rushed out, her face drip- 
ping blood as she ran. Before we knew what or 
where, she came back with two policemen. In front 
of our dumb eyes we saw Father handcuffed, like 
a thief, and taken away to the station house. 

Bessie and Fania came home still without work. 
When they heard that Father was arrested it was as 
though their heads were knocked off. 

Into this thick sadness, Mashah came, beautiful 
and smiling, like a doll from a show window. She 
hung up her hat with its pink roses on her nail on the 
wall, and before she had time to give a look at her 
things in the box, to see that nobody had touched 
them, she rushed over to the mirror, and with her 
smile of pleasure in herself, she said: 

‘*A man in the place where I was looking for work 


HESTER STREET 19 


asked to take me home. And when I wouldn’t let 
him, still he followed me. The freshness of these 
men! I can’t walk the street without a million eyes 
after me.” 

Silence and gloom were her only answer. 

Mashah stopped talking; turning from the mirror, 
for the first time gave a look at us. 

“What happened? It’s like a funeral in the 
house.” 

‘The landlord’s collector lady was here—and——’ 

“Well? What of it?” 

**She was hollering for the rent.” 

‘Then why didn’t they pay her the rent?” asked 
the innocent doll face. ‘Don’t everybody pay 
rent?” 

Mother began to scream and knock her head with 
her fists. “A stone! An empty-headed, brainless 
stone I had for a child. My own daughter, liv- 
ing in the same house with us, asking, ‘Why did 
the landlady come? Why don’t they pay her the 
rent?’”’ 

Not listening to Mother’s cursing and screaming, 
Mashah looked about for something to eat. ‘The 
stove was cold. No food was on the table. 

“Why ain’t there something to eat? I’m starved.” 

Then Mashah caught sight of two quarters on the 
table that Muhmenkeh had left when she came to 
comfort us. 

What should I buy for supper?’’ Mashah asked, 
reaching for the money. 


9 


20 BREAD GIVERS 


Before she could get to the quarters, I leaped to 
the table and seized one of them. 

““Mammeh!” I begged. “Let me only go out to 
peddle with something. I got to bring in money if 
nobody is working.” 

“Woe is me!”” Mother cried. “‘How can I stand 
it? An empty-head on one side and a craziness on 
the other side.” 

“Nobody is working and we got to eat,’ I kept 
begging. “If I could only peddle with something I 
could bring in money.” 

“Let me alone. Crazy-head. No wonder your 
father named you ‘ Blut-und-Eisen.’ When she be- 
gins to want a thing, there is no rest, no let-up till she 
gets it. It wills itself in you to play peddler and 
waste away the last few cents we got.” 

“As long as we're not working,” said Bessie, 
‘‘whatever Sara will earn will be something. Even 
only a few cents will buy a loaf of bread.” 

Without waiting for Mother to say yes, I ran out 
with the quarter in my hand. I saw Mashah go toa 
pushcart of frankfurters. But I, with my quarter, 
ran straight to Muhmenkeh. 

‘TI got to do something,’ I yelled like a fire engine. 
“Nobody is working by us. Nobody! Nobody! 
What should I buy to sell quick to earn money?” 

Muhmenkeh thought for a minute, then said, “I 
got some old herring left in the bottom of this barrel. 
They’re a little bit squashed, but they ain’t spoiled 


HESTER STREET 21 


yet, and you'll be able to sell them cheap because I'll 
give them to you for nothing.” 

“No—no! I’m no beggar!” I cried. “I want 
to go into business like a person. I must buy what 
{ got to sell.” And I held up the same quarter that 
Muhmenkeh had given Mother. 

“Good luck on you, little heart!’”? Muhmenkeh’s 
old eyes smiled into mine. ‘‘Go, make yourself for a 
person. Pick yourself out twenty-five herring at a 
penny apiece. You can easy sell them at two cents, 
and maybe the ones that ain’t squeezed for three 
cents.” 

On the corner. of the most crowded part of Hester 
Street I stood myself with my pail of herring. 

“Herring! Herring! A bargain in the world! 
Pick them out yourself. Two cents apiece.” 

My voice was like dynamite. Louder than all the 
pushcart peddlers, louder than all the hollering noises 
of bargaining and selling, I cried out my herring with 
all the burning fire of my ten old years. 

So loud was my yelling, for my little size, that peo- 
ple stopped to look at me. And more came to see 
what the others were looking at. 

‘Give only a look on the saleslady,” laughed a big 
fat woman with a full basket. 

‘Also a person,” laughed another, “‘also fighting 
already for the bite in the mouth.” 

“‘ How old are you, little skinny bones? Ain’t your 
father working?” 


2 | BREAD GIVERS | 


I didn’t hear. I couldn’t listen to their smartness. 
I was burning up inside me with my herring to sell. 
Nothing was before me but the hunger in our house, 
and no bread for the next meal if I didn’t sell the 
herring. No longer like a fire engine, but like a 
houseful of hungry mouths my heart cried, “‘ Herring 
—herring! ‘Two cents apiece!” 

First one woman bought. And then another and 
another. Some women didn’t even stop to pick out 
the herring, but let me wrap it up for them in the 
newspaper, without even a look if it was squashed or 
not. And before the day was over my last herring 
was sold. 

I counted my greasy fifty pennies. Twenty-five 
cents profit. Richer than Rockefeller, I felt. 

I was always saying to myself, if [ ever had a quar- 
ter or a half dollar in my hand, I’d run away from 
home and never look on our dirty house again. But 
now I was so happy with my money, I[ didn’t think of 
running away, I only wanted to show them what I 
could do and give it away to them. 

It began singing in my heart, the music of the whole 
Hester Street. The pushcart peddlers yelling their 
goods, the noisy playing of children in the gutter, the 
women pushing and shoving each other with their 
market baskets—all that was only hollering noise be- 
fore melted over me like a new beautiful song. 

It began dancing before my eyes, the twenty-five 
herring that earned me my twenty-five cents. It 
lifted me in the air, my happiness. I couldn’t help 


HESTER STREET 23 


it. It began dancing under my feet. And I couldn’t 
stop myself. I danced into our kitchen. And 
throwing the fifty pennies, like a shower of gold, into 
my mother’s lap, I cried, “Now, will you yet call me 
crazy-head? Give only a look what ‘Blood-and- 
iron’ has done.” ! 


CHAPTER II 
THE SPEAKING MOUTH OF THE BLOCK 


VEN butchers and bakers and common money- 
H makers have sometimes their use in the 
world,” said Father. 

He had just come home free from the court. And 
Mother was telling him how the butcher and baker 
and Zalmon the fish-peddler left their work to bail 
him out. And how they raised the money together 
for the best American-born lawyer to take his part. 

“Nu? Why shouldn’t they take my part?”’ said 
Father. “Am I not their light? The whole world 
would be in thick darkness if not for men like me 
who give their lives to spread the light of the Holy 
Torah.” 

It was like a holiday all over the block when they 
had Father’s trial. The men stopped their work. 
The women left their cooking and washing and 
marketing, and with babies on their arms, and babies 
hanging on to their skirts, they crowded themselves 
into the court to hear the trial. 

In high American language the lawyer made a 
speech to the judge and showed with his hands all 
those people who looked up to Father as the light of 
their lives. And then he told the Court to look on 


24 


THE SPEAKING MOUTH 26 


Father’s face, how it shined from him, like from a 
child, the goodness from the holy life of prayer. 

“He couldn’t hurt a fly,” the lawyer said. ‘‘Reb 
Smolinsky would turn aside not to step on the littlest 
worm under the feet.”” And he called on the neigh- 
bours to give witness how Father loved only stillness 
and peace and his learning from his books. And if 
he hit the landlady, it was only because she burst 
into the house in the midst of his prayers, and 
knocked his Bible out of his hands and stepped on it 
with her feet. 

“It’s a lie!”’ cried the collector lady. 

Then our smart lawyer asked the judge to have 
made a print of her foot on a white piece of paper. 
And when he showed up together the page in the Bible 
where her wet, muddy foot stepped, and the print on 
the white paper, everybody could see it was the same 
shoe. 

For a minute it was so still in that court, as 1f some- 
body had just died and everybody was scared to draw 
his breath. 

“Prisoner discharged!”’ said the judge. 

The crowd got so excited, yelling and shouting 
with gladness, they almost carried Father home over 
their heads. 

For weeks after, everybody was talking about 
Father. By the butcher, by the baker, by the fish 
market, everybody was telling everybody over and 
over again, as you tell fairy tales, how Father hit the 
landlady when she stepped on the Holy Torah. 


26 BREAD GIVERS 


In the evening, when everybody sat out on the 
stoop, the women nursing their babies, the men 
smoking their pipes, and the girls standing around 
with their young men, their only talk was how 
Father was the speaking mouth of the block. Not 
only did he work for the next world, but he was even 
fighting for the people their fight in this world. 

Everybody was scared to death when the land- 
lord came around. And Father hitting the land- 
lord’s collector lady was like David killing Goliath, 
the giant. 

Shprintzeh Gittel put the baby down in the gutter, 
stuck a nipple into its mouth to keep it quiet, and 
right before everybody on the stoop, acted out, like 
on the stage, the way Father hit the landlady first on 
one cheek and then on the other. 

All the people stamped their feet and clapped theit 
hands, with pleasure of getting even, once in their 
lives, with someone over them that was always 
stepping on them. 

“She deserves it yet worse—the fresh thing!” said 
the rag-picker. “She insults enough the people.” 

*But a man shouldn’t hit a lady,” said Shprintzeh 
Gittel’s Americanized daughter who was standing 
around with her American-born young man. 

*““A collector for the landlord ain’t a lady,” cried 
Shprintzeh Gittel. ‘“‘For insulting her own religion 
they should tear her flesh in pieces. They should 
boil her in oil and freeze her in ice. fa 


THE SPEAKING MOUTH 29 


**T hate the landlord worse as a pawnbroker,”’ said 
Hannah Hayyeh, the washwoman. “Every month 
of your life, whether you’re working or not working, 
whether you’re sick or dying, you got to squeeze out 
so much blood to give the leech for black walls that 
walk away, alive with bedbugs and roaches and 
mice.” 

“He lives himself on Riverside Drive, and his 
windows open out into the sunshine from the park, se 
why should he worry if it’s to get choked with smoke 
in my dark kitchen every time I got to light the fire to 
cook something,” said the shoemaker’s wife from the 
basement. 

“Tf the landlord wills himself another diamond on 
his necktie, or if his wife wants a thicker fur coat, all 
he got to do is to raise our rent.” 

‘But you people are unreasonable,” said the book- 
keeper, who was always wearing a white, starched 
collar on his neck. 

*‘Poor people are yet too much reasonable, because 
they can’t help themselves,” interrupted Hannah 
Hayyeh. “It’s the landlords who don’t want to fix 
or paint the houses and yet keep on raising the rent 
what are unreasonable.” 

“But the landlord has to pay taxes. And when 
they raise his taxes, he must raise the rent. Ne 

“Taxes? Rich people got enough money for taxes 
and other pleasures. I should only have the worry 
for paying taxes on a million dollars.” 


28 BREAD GIVERS 


And so it kept on. And the arguments always 
ended with, ‘‘Long years on Reb Smolinsky to fight 
the landlords for the people!”’ 

Soon everybody from all around knew us so well, 
it got easy for us to rent the front room. First one 
came, then another, and then a third. And when 
Mother wanted to squeeze in another boarder, they 
said they’d better each pay yet another quarter a 
week more and not have another boarder in the same 
room. 

Things began to get better with us. Bessie, 
Fania, and Mashah got work. But still I kept on 
peddling herring. Earning twenty-five and some- 
times thirty to fifty cents a day made me feel inde- 
pendent, like a real person. It was already back of 
me to pick coal from ash cans. I felt better to earn 
the money and pay out my own earned money for 
bought coal. 

Mother began to fix up the house like other people. 
The instalment man trusted us now. We got a new 
table with four feet that were so solid it didn’t spill 
the soup all over the place. Mashah got a new 
looking glass from the second-hand man. It had a 
crack in the middle but it was so big she could see her- 
self from the head to the feet. Mother even bought 
regular towels. Every time we wiped our faces on 
them it seemed so much behind us the time we had 
only old rags for towels. 

We bought a new soup pot and enough plates and 
spoons and forks and knives so we could all sit down 


THE SPEAKING MOUTH 29 


by the table at the same time and eat like people. It 
soon became natural, as if we were used from always 
to eat with separate knives and forks instead of from 
the pot to the hand as we once did. 

Once in a while we even had butter on our bread. 
And when eggs were cheap and Mother got a bargain 
at a pushcart, a lot of cracked eggs, then we had eggs 
for breakfast just like the boarders. Now all of us 
had meat for the Sabbath—not only Father. And 
sometimes Mother had a half chicken for Father. 

But the more people get, the more they want. We 
no sooner got used to regular towels than we began to 
want toothbrushes, each for himself like Mashah. 
We got the toothbrushes and we began wanting 
toothpowder to brush our teeth with, instead of 
ashes. And more and more we wanted more things, 
and really needed more things the more we got 
them. 

With the regular wages coming in each week, 
Mother became a new person. ‘There was a new look 
in her eyes, and a new sound in her voice when she 
went to the grocery store, with the dollar in her hand, 
and bought what she wanted for cash, instead of 
having to beg them to trust her. 

Sometimes almost a whole day would pass without 
a curse or a scream from Mother. She even began! 
to laugh, once in a while, and make jokes about soon 
buying a house and a fur coat for winter. 

When we sat down to our dinner she’d begin to 
tell us of the years back when she was a young girl. 


30 BREAD GIVERS 


““Who’d believe me, here in America, where I have 
to bargain by the pushcarts over a penny that I once 
had it so plenty in my father’s house? Pots full of 
fat, barrels full of meat, and boilers full of jelly we had 
packed away in our cellar. | used to make cake for 
the Sabbath with cream so thick you could cut it 
with a knife.” 

Her eyes looked far away like in a dream. 

“When I’d go to a fair, everywhere I'd pass, 
people would draw in their breath, they’d stop their 
bargaining and selling and stand back with sudden 
stillness, only to give a look on my face. See me 
only! Cheeks like red apples, skin softer and finer as 
pink velvet. Long, thick braids to my knees. Eyes 
dancing out of my head with the life in me. And 
such life as I once had! Wherever I gave a step, the 
whole earth burned under my feet, Give only a look 
on Mashah. That’s the picture of me how I was. 
Only I was a hundred times healthier. In my face 
was all the sunshine and fresh air of the open fields.” 

I looked on Mother’s faded eyes, her shape like a 
squashed barrel of yeast, and her face black and yel- 
low with all the worries from the world. 

“You looked like Mashah?” I asked. 

“Where do you suppose Mashah got her looks? 
From the air? Mashah never had such colour in her 
cheeks, such fire in her eyes. And my shape was 
something to look on—not the straight up and down 
like the beauties make themselves in America.” 

The kitchen walls melted away to the far-off times 


THE SPEAKING MOUTH 31 


in Russia, as Mother went on and on with her fairy 
tales till late hours of the night. | 

“I was known in all the villages around not only 
for my beauty: I was the first dancer on every wed- 
ding. You don’t see in America such dancing like 
mine. The minute Id give a step in they’d begin 
clapping their hands and stamping their feet, the 
fiddlers began to play, and sing the song they played. 
And the whole crowd, old and young, would form a - 
ring around me and watch with open mouth how I 
lifted myself in the air, dancing the kozatzkeh.” 

Once Mother got started she couldn’t stop herself, 
telling more and more. She was like drunk with the 
memories of old times. 

“When I got fourteen years old, the matchmakers 
from all the villages, far and near, began knocking on 
our doors, telling my father the rich men’s sons 
that were crazy to marry themselves to me. But 
Father said, he got plenty of money himself. He 
wanted to buy himself honour in the family. He 
wanted only learning in a son-in-law. Not only could 
he give his daughter a big dowry, but he could prom- 
ise his son-in-law twelve years’ free board and he 
wouldn’t have to do anything but sit in the syna- 
gogue and learn. 

“When the matchmaker brought your father to 
the house the first time, so my father could look him 
over and hear him out his learning, they called me in 
to give a look on him, but I was so ashamed I ran out 
of the house. But my father and the matchmaker 


32 BREAD GIVERS 


stayed all day and all night. And one after another 
your father chanted by heart Isaiah, Jeremiah, the 
songs of David, and the Book of Job. 

“In the morning Father sent messengers to all 
the neighbours to come and eat with him cake and 
wine for his daughter’s engagement that was to be 
the next day. I didn’t give a look on your father 
till the day of the engagement, and then I was too 
bashful to really look on him. I only stole a glance 
now and then, but I could see how it shined from his 
face the high learning, like from an inside sun. 

“Nobody in all the villages around had dowry like 
mine. Six feather beds and twelve pillows. I used 
to sit up nights with all the servants to pluck the .- 
down from the goose feathers. So full of down were 
my pillows that you could blow them away with a 
breath. 

“I went special to Warsaw to pick out the ticking 
for my bedding. All my sheets had my name em- 
broidered with a beautiful wreath’ of flowers over it. 
All my towels were half covered with red and blue 
embroidery and on each was some beautiful words 
embroidered such as, ‘Happy sunshine,’ ‘Good- 
morning!’ or “Good-night!’ 

“My curtains alone took me a whole year to knit, 
on sticks two yards long. But the most beautiful 
thing of my whole dowry was my hand-crocheted 
tablecloth. It was made up of little knitted rings 
of all colours: red, blue, yellow, green, and purple. 
All the colours of the rainbow were in that tablecloth. 


THE SPEAKING MOUTH 33 


Tt was like dancing sunshine lighting up the room 
when it was spread on the table for the Sabbath. 
Ach! ‘There ain’t in America such beautiful things 
like we had home.” 

‘“Nonsense, Mamma!’, broke in Mashah. ‘“‘If 
you only had the money to go on Fifth Avenue you’d 
see the grand things you could buy.” 

“Yes, buy!’ repeated Mother. ‘In America, 
rich people can only buy, and buy things made by 
machines. Even Rockefeller’s daughter got only 
store-bought, ready-made things for her dowry. 
There was a feeling in my tablecloth 

“But why did you leave that rainbow tablecloth 
and come to America?” I asked. 

*‘Because the Tsar of Russia! Worms should eat 
him! He wanted for himself free soldiers to make 
pogroms. He wanted to tear your father away from 
his learning and make him a common soldier—to 
drink vodka with the drunken mouzhiks, eat pig, and 
shoot the people. 

“There was only one thing to do, go to the brass- 
buttoned butchers and buy him out of the army. 
The pogromshchiks, the minute they smelled money, 
they were like wild wolves on the smell of blood. 
The more we gave them, the more they wanted. 
We had to sell out everything, and give them all we 
had, to the last cent, to shut them up. 

“Then, suddenly, my father died. He left us all 
his money. And your father tried to keep up his 
business, selling wheat and wine, while he was sing- 


34 BREAD GIVERS 


ing himself the Songs of Solomon. Maybe Solomon 
got himself rich first and then sang his Songs, but 
your father wanted to sing first and then attend to 
business. He was a smart salesman, only to sell 
things for less than they cost. . . . And when 
everything was gone from us, then our only hope was 
to come to America, where Father thought things 
cost nothing at all.” 


CHAPTER III 
THE BURDEN BEARER 


UT Mother did not dream always about how 

B good she had it as a young girl. If she had 

less to worry for the rent, so she had more 

time to worry for a man for Bessie, who was already 

nine years older than Mother was when she got 

married. And there was no sign of aman yet. And 
no dowry to help get one. 

What Muhmenkeh said about the boarders didn’t 
turn out that way, because all the boarders, the 
minute they gave a look on Mashah, fainted away for 
her. And they didn’t see at all Bessie, who carried 
the whole house on her back. ‘Their eyes turned 
only on Mashah and their ears didn’t hear anything 
but what Mashah said. 

The men didn’t know that if Mashah was always 
shining like a doll, it was because Mashah took first 
her wages to make herself more beautiful and left 
the rest of us to worry for the bread and rent. They 
didn’t know that Mashah, on her way home from 
work, always looked on the shop windows for what 
was the prettiest and latest style. They didn’t 
know that all her time home, instead of helping with 

35 


36 BREAD GIVERS 


the housework, Mashah was always before the mir- 
ror trying on her things, this way and that way, so 
as to make them more and more becoming to her, 
while Bessie would rush home the quicker to help 
Mother with the washing or ironing, or bring home 
another bundle of night work, and stay up till all 
hours to earn another dollar for the house. 

The men didn’t know that Bessie gave every cent 
she earned to Father and had nothing left to buy 
herself something new. All they saw was that 
Mashah was a pleasure to look on, while Bessie 
was so buried, with her nose in the earth ‘helping 
the family, that they had no more eyes on her than 
on Mother. 

Even Fania, the third sister, got herself a young 
man before Bessie did. In the airshaft, facing our 
kitchen, he lived. He was a boarder with Zalmon, 
the fish-peddler. Once, when Fania put her head out 
of the window to dry her hair, the young man began 
to talk to her. Then he told her about the night 
school where he was going and he showed her the 
books he took from the free library. 

And soon, every evening, Fania began to go to the 
same night school where the young man went. 
And he began writing her every day love poems, such 
grand, beautiful thoughts that read like from a book. 
And sometimes, Fania would read the poems the 
young man sent'her to the girls on the stoop. And 
nobody would believe that such burning high 
thoughts came from that pale-faced, quiet-looking 


THE BURDEN BEARER 37 


man that lived in that dark airshaft hole with Zal- 
mon the fish-peddler, and who was only a sweeper 
and cleaner in the corner drugstore. 

And so the neighbours saw Mashah always with a 
bunch of men, buzzing around her like flies around a 
pot of honey. They saw Fania go to the night school 
and to the library with the writing young man. But 
Bessie had nobody. And you could see it in her 
face, how it ate out her heart to have the younger 
sisters go out with men, and she had nobody. No- 
body. 

And then it happened! : 

Once, when it was the night for the wages, Bessie 
came home with three packages, a new oilcloth for 
the table, a remnant from a lace curtain to tack 
around the sink, to hide away the rusty pipes, and a 
ten-cent roll of gold paper for the chandelier to cover 
up the fly dirt that was so thick you couldn’t scrub it 
away. 

Mashah wanted to go to hear the free music in the 
park, but Bessie begged her to stay home. “Help 
me only, this once, to shine up the house a little. 
You, too, will feel good if somebody should come in 
and find the house looks decent, like by other 
people.”’ 

And so excited was Bessie to clean up the house 
that she made us pull out everything to the middle 
of the room and scrub out the corners and under the 
bed. And when we packed all the junk away where 
it wouldn’t show itself, the crowded kitchen got 


38 BREAD GIVERS 


bigger and there was more room to move around 
without knocking things over. | 

And when we tacked the lace curtain around the 
sink, and fixed fancy the chandelier with the gold 
paper, and we spread out the new, white oilcloth 
on the table, it looked like a new house. 

We were sitting like company, taking pleasure in 
our new, cleaned-up kitchen. Ach! 1 was thinking 
to myself, if only we didn’t have to pull out the torn 
bedding from its hiding place to sleep—the rags to 
dress ourselves—if only we didn’t have to dirty up 
the new whiteness of the oilcloth with the eating, 
then it would shine in our house always like a palace. 
It’s only when poor people begin to eat and sleep 
and dress themselves that the ugliness and dirt be- 
gins to creep out of their black holes. : 

Just then, Mother came in. She looked around, 
her eyes jumping out of her head. ‘‘What hap- 
pened!” she cried. ‘“‘Gold shines in our house! 
Lace hangs on our walls!” Then she touched the 
white oilcloth on the table as if she was afraid to 
touch it with her hard-worked hand. ‘‘ White mar- 
ble to eat on!’ 

“It’s too grand for every day. Quick only! 
Let’s cover up the oilcloth with newspapers and 
save the lace curtain for company.” 

“No!” Bessie stamped her foot like a new person. 
“We won’t cover up the beautiful whiteness. Now 
that we’re working ourselves up, let’s have 1 it beauti- 
ful for ourselves, not only for company.” 


THE BURDEN BEARER 39 


** Nu—nu—don’t fly away with yourselves in 
fairyland,” laughed Mother. ‘“‘We’re poor people 
yet. And poor people got to save e 

“*Save—save!” cried the new Bessie. “I’m sick 
of saving and slaving to choke myself in the dirt. 
I want to live while I’m yet alive.”’ 

We opened wide our eyes to give a look on Bessie. 
What had suddenly happened to her? Father 
called her the burden-bearer, because she was always 
with her nose in the earth slaving for the family. 
And now she suddenly wanted to lift up her head in 
the world and live. 

Mother threw her hands up. ‘“‘Have it your way! 
American children always want things over their 
heads.” 

The next evening, when we came home, Mother 
was away at a sick neighbour’s that was dying. And 
Father was yet in the synagogue. Fania never had 
time to wait for supper on the evenings she went to 
night school. So she grabbed a piece of bread and 
herring and, still eating it, hurried downstairs, where 
her young man was waiting for her to take her to 
school. 

Bessie hurried to get the supper and rushed 
Mashah and me to eat it quick. I was wondering 
why Bessie was so excited to get the supper, as if she 
was starving hungry, and yet didn’t eat much her- 
self. All the time she gave quick glances on Mashah 
and quickly turned her eyes away when Mashah 
looked up. 


40 BREAD GIVERS 


“T’ll wash the dishes, Mashah, if you want to go 
out,” said Bessie, the minute we were done eating. — 

‘But it’s raining,” said Mashah. 

“Then why don’t you go the Grand Street vaude- 
ville?” 

“T haven’t the money.” _ 

Then think only! Bessie took from her stocking a 
quarter. “Here, you got it.” 

Mashah took the money and stared on it hard, as if 
to see if it was lead. ‘Then looking upon Bessie with 
her innocent, wondering eyes, she asked, “What 
makes you so good to me all of a sudden?” 

“Oh, well Bessie got red and looked away. 
“Oh, well—you stayed in last night to help fix up 
the house, so I thought you’d want to go some- 
where.” 

Mashah didn’t need to be begged to go to the 
theatre. She grabbed her hat and coat and out she 
went. 

The minute the door closed behind Mashah, Bessie 
pushed the dirty dishes under the sink behind the cur- 
tain. With the quickness of a cat she jumped onthe - 
bed. She grabbed the hanger with Mashah’s pink 
dress, that was covered around with a white sheet, 
like a holy thing. Crazy with excitement, she 
pulled off her skirt and waist. And, like lightning, 
the pink princess dress was over her head. 

“Quick, Sara,’ she called, “help me. I can’t 
squeeze my arms into the sleeves.” 


“Oi weh! Mashah will kill us,’ I cried. 


THE BURDEN BEARER 4I 


“I got to have it. I got to look nice to-night. 
Somebody—a man is coming.” 

The dress that slipped on so easy on Mashah’s thin 
shape stuck on Bessie in the middle. But somehow, 
by the two of us pulling it together she could squeeze 
her arms through the tight sleeves. 

*‘Hook it only faster,” she begged. 

I tried to push together the hooks, but they were 
too far apart. 

*““Tt’ll choke you to wear it,’ [ said, worn out from 
pulling. “‘Can’t you see it ain’t big enough?” 
“Te’s got to be big enough.” And Bessie stood 
up on her toes and blew out all her breath, and she 
squeezed herself with her hands till I could pull to- 
gether the hooks one at atime. But it was so tight, 
where every hook was came a wrinkle. It made her 
shape stick out so funny that I begged her: ‘‘ Better 
put back on your old skirt and waist that you wear 
to the shop, because in this tight dress 1 it sticks out.so 
your fatness.” 

“But every day he sees me in the shop, in hae 
same old skirt and waist. I want him to see me in 
something different. I want to brighten myself up 
to him.” 

“But it don’t brighten you like Mashah because 
Mashah got red cheeks and 
Bessie pushed me aside, and ran over to Mashah’s 

looking-glass, and began fixing her hair. But she 
Was so nervous and excited the comb fell out from 
her hand. And when she bent down to pick it up—~ 


42 BREAD GIVERS 


crack! burst open the seam on the side of the pink 
dress! 

Just then there was a knocking on the door. And 
Bessie ran into the bedroom to pin together the 
ripped seam. 

When the knocking came again, I opened the door. 
There was aman. He had a starched shirt on, with 
a white starched collar on his neck, and a gold chain 
across his checked vest. 

*““Is Bessie Smolinsky here?” he asked. 

“Right away she'll come!’ I. said. And | 
showed him to Father’s chair with a cushion to sit on. 

Then Bessie came out, her eyes burning out of her 
head, her cheeks redder than Mashah’s, and her right 
arm held to the side, like pasted there, to cover up 
where she pinned herself together. 

She shook hands with the man from only her el- 
bow. But the man didn’t notice anything, he 
looked as mixed-up and excited as Bessie herself. 

First I went to the bedroom, so they could talk to 
themselves. And I was thinking to put on my shawl 
and go out in the street. Then I remembered that 
Bessie was like lame, with her arm pasted to her side 
to cover up the rip in her pink dress. And I began 
looking around, all over the house, to find where 
Mother hid away the jelly for the company. 

While I was yet looking for the jelly, Father came 
in. His face lighted up with gladness to see the 
company. And the young man got up from his 


THE BURDEN BEARER 43 


chair and shook hands with Father. Bessie was so 
excited, she stood there red in her face and moving 
her lips like a yok, unable to open her mouth and 
let out a word how to make the introduction. 

‘* Nu, Bessie?’ asked Father. ‘‘What’s this man’s 
name? Who is he?”’ 

**Berel Bernstein,’ came out the words from her 
choked neck. “He is the cutter from our shop.” 

Father shook hands with him again. ‘“‘Berel 
Bernstein, from where do you come?” 

**My village was seven miles from Grodno,” said 
Berel Bernstein. 

**Is your father also in America?” 

**No, he’s in Russia yet.” 

**How long are you here?” 

‘Ten years already.” 

“Do you still pray every morning?” , 

The man got red and looked down on the floor, 
**Sometimes, when I get up early enough, I pray. 
But I keep all the holidays.” 

“‘How much wages do you earn?” 

“Eighteen dollars a week.”” And he stuck out his 
chest a little from his bashfulness. 

*‘How much do you save each week from your 
eighteen dollars?” questioned more Father. 

**Sometimes, six, sometimes seven dollars,’ said 
Berel Bernstein. 

“What! On yourself only, you spend eleven 
twelve dollars!’ Father looked him over from his 


3 


4a BREAD GIVERS 


patent-leather shoes to the gold horseshoe pin shin- 
ing on his red necktie. “A whole family could live 
already on what you spend on your one self.” 

Berel Bernstein got red as fire. “I got to eat my 
meals in the restaurant where it costs you twice so 
much as it would cost home. I think like you say, a 
married man could live cheaper as a single one. If 
a man could only have a wife to cook for him and 
wash for him. That’s why He stopped and 
-couldn’t go on what he had to say. 

Father gave a quick, sharp look on the man, and 
then his eyes went on Bessie, like she had brought a 
thief in the house. But he didn’t say anything. 
And it got so still in the house, everybody looking 
away from each other, that I brought in the tea and 
jelly. 

As soon as they began drinking the tea, Father 
loosened up his hard look and began again his ques- 
tions. “‘You got something already in the bank?” 

“Sure, I got money saved. For years already I 
lived for a purpose. I know inside the whole cloth- 
ing trade. I was working already as a baster, a 
presser, and an operator. And now I’m already 
the head cutter. And I’m thinking to start myself a 
shop.” 

“So you'll be a manufacturer yet, in America,” 
said Father. ‘‘Have more jelly in your tea. And 
how soon will you open yourself up your factory?” 

“First [’m thinking to get myself married.” 

“That’s good sense. A business man needs him- 


THE BURDEN BEARER 4s 


self a wife. She could run him the home cheaper, 
and maybe help him yet in business, if she’s got a 
head.” | 

*That’s just what I’m looking for,” said Berel 
Bernstein. “I like a plain home girl that knows 
how to help save the dollar, and cook a good meal, 
and help me yet in the shop. And I think 
your daughter Bessie is just fitting for me.”’ 

Father pushed back his glass of tea, and stood up, 
looking on the man. “Daughters like mine are not 
found in the gutter.”’ 

“Sure! Don’t I see Bessie in the shop, every day 
how she knows more about the work as the fore- 
lady? I could get plenty girls with money. But I 
want to take your daughter, like she is, without a 
dowry.” | 

“Why don’t you ask me first what I want?’ cried 
Father. “Don’t forget when she gets married, 
who'll carry me the burden from this house? She 
earns me the biggest wages. With Bessie I can be 
independent. I don’t have to grab the first man 
that wants her. I can wait yet a few years.”’ 

“You can wait! But your daughter is getting 
older each year, not younger. Do you want her to 
wait till her braids grow gray?” | 

“Look at Weinberg’s daughter!’ said Father. 
“She is thirty years already, and she’s still working 
for her father. Has a father no rights in America? 
Didn’t I bring my children into the world? Shouldn’t 
they at least support their old father when he’s get- 


46 BREAD GIVERS 


ting older? Why should children think only of 
themselves? Here I give up my whole life, working 
day and night, to spread the light of the Holy Torah. 
Don’t my children owe me at least a living?” 

“But Bessie must get married some time. And 
you can’t get such chances like me every day.” 

“Don’t forget it that you’re only a man of the 
earth. I’m a man of God. Wouldn’t Bessie get a — 
higher place in Heaven supporting me than if she 
married and worked for you?” 

“The cheek, from a beggar who dreams himself 
God! Berel’s voice grew loud, like a fish-peddler’s. 
“Tm a plain ‘man of the earth.’ You can’t put 
none of your Heaven over on me.” 

“But I ask you only, by your conscience, what 
should I do without her wages? ‘The other children 
don’t earn much. And they need more than they 
earn. They’d spend every cent on themselves if 
Vd only let them. But Bessie spends nothing on her- 
self. She gives me every cent she earns. And if 
you marry her, you’re as good as taking away from 
me my living—tearing the bread from my mouth.” 

Till now Bessie sat still, mixing her tea with the 
spoon, not tasting it. But now, as Father’s bargain- 
ing over her got louder, she ran into the bedroom. 
She stood beating her breast with her clenched fist. 
Then she sat very still and the tears kept running 
silently down her cheeks. I couldn’t stand to look 
on her. Tears came into my eyes. So I ran out 
of the bedroom to the kitchen, not to cry. 


THE BURDEN BEARER 47 


/ “So you don’t want me yet?” cried Berel Bern- 
stein. “‘Doyouknowwholam? Matchmakers are 
running after me—girls with a thousand and two 
thousand dollars dowry. You ought to see their 
pictures! Young—beautiful—good family—every- 
thinga mancan only want. They, begging themselves 
by me. But I don’t even give a look on them. I 
like your girl better. I don’t want those dressed-up 
dolls, to spend my money on them. I look ahead 
on the future. I want awife for a purpose. I must 
open myself a shop. And Bessie could help me with 
the ‘hands,’ while I do the cutting. And we could 
work ourselves up—and if 

** Nu, if you want her so much, why don’t you look 
on my side a little?” 

‘What more do you want me to do? Ain’t J 
taking her from your hands without a cent?” 

“Taking her from my hands! Only girls who 
hang on their father’s neck for their eating and 
dressing, that the father has to pay dowry, to get 
rid of his burden. But Bessie brings me in every cent 
she earns. When a girl like mine leaves the house 
the father gets poorer, not richer. It’s not enough 
to take my Bessie without a dowry. You must pay 
me yet.” 

“Pay you? Why and for what?” 

“Tf Bessie gets married, you got to pay all the ex- 
penses for the wedding and buy her clothes. I need 
a new outfit myself. You see what’s on me is all I 
have. These things I wear are from Russia yet. 


48 BREAD GIVERS 


Give a look on my shoes! Wouldn’t it be a shame 
for the world if Reb Smolinsky, the light of the block, 
the one man who holds up the flame of the Holy 
Torah before America, should come to his daughter’s 
wedding in such shoes? You yourself don’t want the 
bride’s father to come to your wedding feast dressed 
in rags, like a beggar. I got to begin with a new 
pair of shoes, and everything new from the head to 
the feet. And all I ask more, is enough money to 
start myself up some business so I could get along 
without Bessie’s wages.” 

Berel Bernstein hit the table with his fist till the 
tea glasses jumped. ‘I should set you up in busi- 
ness yet!” he hollered at my father. “Um marry- 
ing your daughter—not the whole family. Ain’t it 
enough that your daughter kept you in laziness all 
these years? You want yet her husband to support 
you for the rest of your days? In America they got 
no use for Torah learning. In America everybody 
got to earn his living first. You got two hands and 
two feet. Why don’t you go to work?” . 

“What? I work like a common thickneck? My 
learning comes before my living. [’m a man of 
brains. In a necessity I could turn to business. I 
have a quick head for business. If I only had money, 
I could start myself selling wine and schnapps, or 
maybe, open myself an office for an insurance agent 
or matchmaker, and hold on to my learning at the 
same time.” | 

While Father was yet talking, Berel Bernstein be- 


THE BURDEN BEARER 49 


gan muttering to himself, “What I dreamed last 
night, and this night, and the night before should fall 
on his crazy head.’ Then he began shouting. 
“So it ain’t yet enough for you that I take your 
daughter without a dowry? You don’t want it yet? 
Me? Me? bBerel Bernstein! Instead of grabbing 
me with both hands and thank God for the good 
luck that fell on you, for taking your daughter away 
without a cent, you want me to weigh you yet in 
gold? You think I got Rockefeller’s millions to 
throw away? I got to sweat for every penny I 
earn. I’mnogreenhorn. I mnocow you can milk. 
If you don’t want it yet, then good-by and good 
luck*”’ 

And he rushed to the door and slammed himself out 
without saying good-by to Bessie. 

The next evening, Berel Bernstein brought Bessie 
home from work and stood talking to her on the 
stoop. 

“Your crazy father got me so mad, I was too ex- 
cited to say anything to you. I think more of you 
as your own father. Your father keeps you only for 
your wages. I would take you without a cent and — 
make yet for you a living. And we would work to- 
gether for a purpose, to save the dollar.” 

Still Bessie couldn’t speak, but stood clenching and 
unclenching her fingers and staring down on the 
ground. 

“This is America,’ Berel Bernstein went on, 
“where everybody got to look out for themselves. 


33 


50 BREAD GIVERS 


Together, we'd have a future before us—our own 
shop—our own business. We could live yet in our 
own bought house. I already saw in the pawnshop 
the diamond ring I want to buy you. What will you 
have by living with your father? All your life you'll 
have to give away your wages, and he'll suck out 
from you your last drop of blood like a leech. Fei 

“T couldn’t leave my father. Heneedsme. .. . 

Berel Bernstein shook Bessie by the arm. ‘‘But 
you got to think of yourself. Even in the Torah it 
says, leave your father and mother, and follow the 
man. Better listen to me. Come, let’s get married 
in court.” . 

Bessie shook her head, and tears began coming 
down her cheeks. “I know I’m a fool. But I can- 
not help it. I haven’t the courage to live for myself. 
My own life is knocked out of me. No wonder 
Father called me the burden bearer.” 

“That’s just what you are, a ‘burden bearer.’ 
Here you got a chance to lift your head and become 
a person, and you want to stay in your slavery.” 

“But you see, Father never worked in his life. 
He don’t know how to work. How could I leave 
them to starve?” 

“Starve? He won’t starve. He'll have to go to 
work. It’s you who are to blame for his laziness and 
his rags. So long as he gets from you enough to eat, 
he'll hang on your neck, and bluff away his days with 
his learning and his prayers.” | 

Bessie stopped crying and looked straight at Berel 


33 


THE BURDEN BEARER 51 


Bernstein. ‘“‘I couldn’t marry a man that don’t re- 
spect my father.” 

“You want me to respect a crazy schnorrer like 
your father?’”’ He laughed hard into her face. 
“What I see plain is that you don’t love me. Did 
you think you could rope me in for a fool, to support 
your whole family? ‘The time I wasted yet on you, 
when I could have had the forelady who is crazy for 
me.” 

Bessie reached out to touch his hand. ‘‘Berel, 
MO ah 4) vie: 

“Yes. I see what you'll do. Lucky yet I got my 
sense back in time. I'll yet get a wife for me, my- 
self, and not one to hang a whole beggar family on 
my neck.” And he turned from her and rushed 
down the street, never once looking back. 

Bessie stood very still. She looked after Berel 
Bernstein till she couldn’t see him any more. Then, 
very still, she walked into the house. She didn’t 
say anything. But I could see her sink into herself as 
if all the life went out of her heart and she didn’t care 
about anything any more. 

I walked in after Bessie and hid myself behind the 
door of the bedroom and I cried and cried. 

Six weeks later, we heard that Berel Bernstein was 
going to be engaged to the forelady who lived on the 
first floor of Muhmenkeh’s house. As they told 
Bessie the news, she got twenty years older in that 
one moment. She grew black and yellow, with all 
the worries of the world in her face, like Mother. 


52 BREAD GIVERS 


All my sadness for Bessie suddenly blazed up in 
me into wild anger. I could have choked Berel 
Bernstein with my bare hands. 

In one breath, I ran the whole block and upstairs 
where the engagement was. In the hall I was stop- © 
ped by the crowd of relations from both sides. I 
couldn’t see Berel or his bride, but through the crack 
of the door, I saw big plates of sponge cake and rai- 
sins and nuts and bottles of wine. I was just going 
to give myself a push in when Berel Bernstein’s 
mother grabbed me by the braids and shoved me out. 
“You little devil! Who asked you here?” \, 

I walked down wilder than a mad cat. “I’m 
going to say my say to Berel Bernstein even if I got 
to set the house on fire.’ And suddenly, it came to 
me. I rushed like lightning into Muhmenkeh’s 
house, then up the fire escape. 

With his back to the window stood Berel Bern- 
stein talking to his bride. And before anybody 
could stop me, I dashed open the window, rushed 
over to him and shook him, crying, “ You—you ! 
For shaming my Bessie—you’ll yet eat dirt before 
you die!” — | 


CHAPTER IV 
THE ‘‘EMPTY-HEAD” 


OMETHING happened in our house again! 
G Mashah, the “‘empty-head,” showed signs 
that there was something in her. She was no 
more just a doll in a show window. She was no more 
just something lost in the looking glass of her pretty 
face. 

For the first time in her life, Mashah showed signs 
of interest in someone outside herself. No longer was 
the one reason for her living to make prettier her 
pretty face. Now it was a man that was the begin- 
ning and end of her existence. 

The man put new light in her eyes, new life in her 
face, and such a wonder-working joy in her heart 
that it changed the “empty-head” into a singing sun- 
shine. ‘The pretty doll became overnight a feeling 
person—a person with a heart. | 

We still didn’t believe it—the miracle! Mashah 
in love! 

His name was Jacob Novak and he was a piano- 
player. He lived in the first-floor front room of a 
private house on the corner. His rich father paid 
ten dollars a lesson a week to a professor up town who 
was teaching him and getting him ready for a con- 

53 


54 BREAD GIVERS 


cert, to play it all by himself for a hall full of people. 

One day, as Mashah passed the corner private 
house, she heard playing such as she never heard be- 
fore. She stood looking up at the open window from 
where the playing came, even after the music stopped. 
Then a face came to the window. It was a young 
man’s face. Music was in his eyes and high feelings 
breathed from his face. 

**Play again,’ Mashah begged. 

The man looked on Mashah, and then he went 
back and played more beautifully than before. This 
time when Mashah still looked up after the music 
stopped, the man himself came out. 

And that’s how Mashah’s love began. 

Mashah had always liked to hear free music in the 
park. Now she was all music herself. It sang itself 
from her, the music of love, from the time she got up 
in the morning till she went to bed at night. 

New life hummed in our house. Every day the 
house was swept from out of the corners and from 
under the beds. Before the rest were up, Mashah 
had scrubbed the house as for a holiday. 

Before, Mashah was interested only in hanging up 
her own clothes. But now she told us that “‘Chairs 
were made to sit on, not to throw things on.” And 
she saw to it that everybody’s clothes were hung up 
on hangers as good as her own. 

In these days, when Mashah got home from work 
it was no longer to play with her pretty golden hair, 
combing it in a dozen different styles. Jacob Novak 


THE “EMPTY-HEAD” 5 


was expected for supper. And now she saw to it that 
his place at the table was set as perfect as in a restau- 
rant. The tablecloth and napkins glistened with the 
fresh-ironed whiteness, as if just out from the store 
laundry. ‘The steel knife and the tin fork and spoon 
were polished and polished till they shone bright as 
silver. | 

No longer were the cracked penny cups used for 
evening’s tea, but whole cups with handles were 
taken down from the Passover set and used for every 
day. When Bessie was excited about a man, we 
thought it was riches to have a white oilcloth for the 
table. When love came to Mashah, she covered up 
the oilcloth with a real tablecloth. And more yet— 
when Mashah’s lover came for dinner, he had to have 
a napkin because he always had it. And we each 
had to have a napkin also, so as not to make him feel 
funny with a napkin by himself alone. . 
_ When roses and lilacs became cheap, Mashah went 
without her lunch to buy flowers for the table, in 
honour of Jacob. She managed to find out just what 
eating he liked and just the salt and pepper to please 
his taste. Mother always said that, with her bitter 
_ heart, what were such little things as too much or too 
little salt in the soup. But now, because of Jacob, 
we all had food cooked and salted as it was never 
cooked and salted before. 

Mashah found out that Jacob liked American cook- 
ing, like salad and spinach and other vegetables. 
And right away Mashah joined the cooking class in 


56 BREAD GIVERS 


the settlement, one evening a week, to learn the 
American way of cooking vegetables and fixing salads. 
And soon we all had American salad and American- 
cooked vegetables instead of fried potato lotkes and 
the greasy lokshen kugel that Mother used to make. 

Jacob had a tailor to keep fixed his clothes. But 
Mashah’s eyes were so much on him that once she 
found a button loose before the tailor did. And 
after that, I believe yet, he worked the buttons loose 
on purpose, only to have the pleasure of Mashah’s 
happiness when she sewed them on. 

The bunch of other men that used to buzz around 
Mashah now dropped away when they saw how 
Mashah had fallen in love with Jacob Novak. 

His father owned a big department store on Grand 
Street and Jacob looked like from rich people. It 
didn’t shout from his clothes, the money they cost, as 
it did from Berel Bernstein. He did not wear a 
checked vest, nor on a red necktie a gold horseshoe 
pin. But it breathed from his quiet things, the solid 
richness from the rich who didn’t have to show it off 
any more. Maybe that was the reason Father didn’t 
question out Jacob as he did Bessie’s man, because 
there was about Jacob Novak the sure richness of the 
higher-up that shut out all questions of how he spent 
his money. Or maybe Father didn’t waste time ask- 
ing the man, because Mashah always used out her 
wages on herself. Father said the sooner Mashah got 
married the better for us all. And there would only 
be more room in the house if she was gone. 


THE “EMPTY-HEAD” oe 


Anyhow, Father only objected that he played the 
piano on the Sabbath. But he said he’d better wait 
till Jacob was tight married to the family before he’d 
begin to hold up to him the light of the Holy Torah. 

One day, Mashah came home, all burning up with 
the great big news that Jacob’s father, who had been 
away all this time to Chicago on business, was coming 
home. He was coming special to meet Mashah and 
us all because Jacob had written to him about us, and 
also he had to finish the arrangements of the concert 
that was to come off in a few weeks. 

All day long, Jacob played on his piano, as long 
hours as other people work who have to go to work. 
And for years and years he had done this, to learn 
how to play so the whole world should listen to him. 
This concert was to show up all the long years of his 
learning that now he was ready for the ears of the 
world and no more to play only to the deaf walls of 
his room on Essex Street. This concert was to Jacob 
the great day of his life, the way the wedding day is to 
a girl in love. 

“What is dearer to you, your music or me?” 
Mashah asked her lover once. 

“I love my music more because of you, and I love 
you more, because of my music.”’ | 
A vague, far-off sadness darkened Mashah’s face. 

“All these hours and hours that you practise your 
piano, you see nothing before your eyes but your 
notes. But no matter what I do, you are always be- 
fore my eyes.” 


58 BREAD GIVERS | 


“You jealous dear.” He kissed her eyelids ten- 
derly. ‘Even my business-like father would have to 
love you.” 

“Yes, I am jealous—jealous of your music.” 
Mashah’s eyes burned into his. ‘‘The more you have 
to practise for that concert, the less time you have 
for me.” i 

“But, dearest! My whole life hangs on this con- 
cert. Think what it has cost my father. I must at 
least show him what’s in me.” 

At last it happened. Jacob came with his father. 

The minute his father stepped in, we saw it was the 
richest man that had ever been in our house. From 
him it hollered money, like a hundred cash registers 
ringing up the dollars. The riches from his grand 
clothes so much outshined all the little riches that we 
shined up for him that in a minute it shrank into 
blackness the white tablecloth and the white nap- 
kins. And like a sun in the desert, the glitter of his 
diamonds withered and faded the poor little flowers 
on the table. 

One look he gave on all of us. Then for a minute 
his eyes burned over Mashah. Even though his lips 
answered politely the introduction, we saw Mashah 
shrink and fade under his eyes as the flowers faded 
under the glitter of his diamonds. From Mashah, he 
gave the house another look over. And all Mashah’s 
beauty couldn’t stop the cash-register look in his eyes, 
that we and our whole house weren’t worth one of his 
cuff buttons. 


I 
‘ 


THE “EMPTY-HEAD” 59 


He didn’t stop even to sit down in our house. But 
as quick as he could say it politely, he asked Jacob to 
go out for a walk with him. 

And he didn’t ask Mashah to go along. 

When Jacob didn’t come back that evening, Mash- 
ah tried to push it aside and tell us it was so much 
business about the concert that he couldn’t come 
back. But we ourselves had heard him tell her at the 
door that he would be sure back that evening. And 
we knew it was a bad sign if he didn’t come. 

The next evening was the evening of the concert. 
And Mashah rushed into the house with a frightened, 
worried look and asked anxiously if Jacob had come. 
She looked at the clock. From six it went over to 
seven and then to eight. As the hours passed, she 
grew more and more excited. 

No Jacob. No letter. No message. 

Thad heard Jacob tell Mashah where he was to give 
his concert, and I stole out of the house and took the 
car to the concert hall. At the front door I stopped, 
shaking with excitement. There was Jacob Novak’s 
picture, as big as life, and under his picture, his name, 
in big printed letters. 

I had no money for the ticket, so I stood at the side 
of the man who was collecting the tickets, watching 
the crowd goin. When the first sounds of the music 
started, I ran from that place as one runs from a 
house on fire. The hurt of the great wrong burned 
my flesh. How could that concert go on and Mashah 
not there! 


60 BREAD GIVERS 


When I got back home Mashah was still waiting 
for Novak. 

The clock went on ticking the seconds, the min- 
utes, the hours. Everyone went to sleep. But still 
Mashah waited. At every sound, she listened for 
him. 

It was midnight. But Mashah still sat waiting for 
Jacob to come. ‘“‘He will come. He must come,” 
she kept talking to herself. 

Suddenly, when every one was sound asleep, a 
terrible cry tore through the air—the cry of somebody 
murdered with a knife—the choked bleeding wail of 
a dying, broken heart. 

In one leap we rushed out of bed. We found 
Mashah with her head on the window sill, her whole 
body shaking with sobs—sobs that could not cease— 
and could not be consoled. Like dumb things, we 
all cried with her—all through the night. 

With so many women weeping in the house, 
Father could not sleep any more. 

*Tt’s all because I let a man who plays on the Sab- 
bath into my door that my house 1s so full of woe and 
wailing,” said my father. And he opened his book 
of Jeremiah, and began chanting about the fall of 
Jerusalem. 

Another day, and still another day, passed and 
Jacob did not come. And Mashah sat still, not stir- 
ring, not speaking. With glazed eyes she sat, as one 
watching her best loved one dead in a coffin. 

Only when the whistle of the letter-carrier was 


THE “EMPTY-HEAD” 61 


heard, Mashah stirred and asked in a voice that 
barely breathed, “Is there a letter? Is there a letter 
for me?” 

But no letter came. 

Three more days and three more nights passed. 
Mashah did not eat. Mashah did not sleep. Ma- 
shah just sat still in one place at the window with 
staring eyes that saw nothing. 

_ Then she called me over and said, “‘ Write for me a 
letter. My fingers can’t write any more.’ And so 

I wrote as she said it to me. 

JACOB: 

It’s the last time you will hear from me. I’m not throwing up 
anything to you. I only wanted to tell you that you robbed me 
of my belief in love and truth. In you I believed. You I loved. 
You and your music were everything of truth and beauty there 
was in the world. And if you could leave me, then music is only 
ugly noise, and words of love, all lies. And there is no truth, no 


beauty, and no love in the world. 
Masa. 


As soon as I wrote this letter, she sent me over with 
it to the place he lived. 

I found him walking up and down his room, like 
_ something caged, his thoughts far away. ‘“‘What a 

suffering face—what worried eyes,” I thought, as I 
stood at his open door for some time, before he 
noticed me. Then he jumped at me and seized the 
letter I held in my hand. 

“Oh, my poor dear Mashah!” he groaned, shut- 
ting his eyes with the hurt of his guilt. “I’ve been 
a brute—a criminal!” 


62 BREAD GIVERS 


Like one in a fever, he began talking to himself and 
fighting with the air around him.. 

“*He’ll not keep me from her another minute! To 
hell with Father! I will see her. How can a store- 
keeper’s brain know her heart!” And grabbing me 
by the hand, he rushed with me to Mashah. 

In the hall, he stopped, frightened. ‘‘ Will she see 
me? Please ask her to come down,” he begged like 
achild. “I'll wait here.”’ 

I bounded up the stairs and into the kitchen. It 
was like death in the house since Novak had stopped 
coming. And I thought my words would bring life 
back to Mashah’s dead face. And she would run 
down to meet him as always before. 

““He’s waiting for you, downstairs,’ I gasped, 
breathless. 

She drew herself up tall and proud asa queen. “I 
go to him? No——” 

“But he must see you. He’s afraid to come up. 
You ought to see him. He looks terrible.” 

Slowly she rose and came down. Cold as a stone 
statue, she looked at him. ‘‘What brought you here? 
Is it pity? I need no pity.” 

*“Mashah!”” His hands reached out to _ her, 
pleadingly. “I’ve been a coward—bullied by my 
father. I listened to him because of the concert— 
but no more. You're everything to me!”’ 

He drew her up in his arms and kissed her with 
burning lips. 


THE “EMPTY-HEAD” 63 


““Mashah! Speak to me. Tell me only you for- 
give me. See how I suffered since I left you.” 

**Come upstairs,’’ she said, coldly. 

Was this the same Mashah whose face lit up like a 
living sun at the sound of Jacob’s footsteps? Where 
had gone the light of her eyes, the life that sang and 
danced when he was near? It seemed to me that 
something deep down in her had broken and it would 
never again be fixed. She was like something still 
walking and talking, but inside she was frozen into 
something colder than death. 

As they entered the house, his hand clinging to 
hers, Father came in. 

*“Empty-head!”’ shouted Father, tearing Mashah 
away from Jacob. ‘You yet speak to this liar, this 
denier of God! Didn’t I tell you once a man who 
plays the piano on the Sabbath, a man without re- 
ligion, can’t be trusted? As he left you once, he’ll 
leave you again.” 

“Listen to me just once, I beg you,” Jacob pleaded. 
“It was that concert—my father e 

“Tl not listen to a meshumid who’ plays on the 
Sabbath!” Father pushed his hand from his arm. 
‘It says in the Torah that when you see a meshumid 
drowning you must sink him deeper into the water. 
_ And if you see him burning, you must add yet fuel to 
the flames.” Father opened the door and pushed 
Jacob out. 

The next day, Jacob tried to see Mashah again. 


bs BREAD GIVERS 


And this time Father slammed the door in his face. 
Then he turned to Mashah. 

“*T give you the last warning, never to see that man 
again. If you do, [ll turn you out of the house. 
You must choose between that scoundrel and your 
father.” 

And so Mashah, weak, dumb, helpless with the 
first great sorrow of her life, gave in to Father’s will. 
She let go her chance of fixing up her happiness be- 
cause of Father’s unforgiving pride. And Jacob was 
never seen in the house again. 

Mashah went back to work. She still dressed 
neatly, and was even beautiful in her quiet silence. 
But she dressed mechanically. A sad, far-off look of 
something for ever gone had come into her eyes. 
She was like a bird with its song for ever stilled. 

In her weakness and dumbness and helplessness, 
Father began letting out all his preaching on her poor 
‘head. “I always told you your bad end. I told you 
with your empty head and pretty face no good could 
come to you. Any man who falls in love witha 
pretty face don’t think to marry himself. If aman 
wants a wife, he looks for one who can cook for him, 
and wash for him, and carry the burden of his house 
for him. I always told you that a man who plays on 
the Sabbath has no fear of God. And if he don’t 
fear God, then how could you trust him anything he 
said?” 

More and more I began to see that Father, in his 
innocent craziness to hold up the Light of the Law to 


THE “EMPTY-HEAD” 65 


his children, was as a tyrant more terrible than the 
Tsar from Russia. As he drove away Bessie’s man, 
so he drove away Mashah’s lover. And each time 
he killed the heart from one of his children, he grew 
louder with his preaching on us all. 

We'd come home worn and tired from working 
hard all day and there was Father with a clear head 
from his dreams of the Holy Torah, and he’d begin 
to preach to each and every one of us our different 
‘sins that would land us in hell. He remembered the 
littlest fault of each and every one of us, from the time 
we were born. And he’d begin hammering these 
faults into us till it got black and red for our eyes. 

Sometimes when I’d come home, the mere sound 
of Father’s voice would get me so nervous that I’d 
want to scream and pull my hair and cry out like a 
lunatic, “I can’t stand it! I can’t stand it any more 
in this house!”’ | 

I began to feel I was different from my sisters. 
They couldn’t stand Father’s preaching any more 
than I, but they could suffer to listen to him, like 
dutiful children who honour and obey and respect 
their father, whether they like him or not. If they 
ever had times when they hated Father, they were 
too frightened of themselves to confess their hate. 

I too was frightened the first time I felt I hated my 
father. I felt like a criminal. But could I help it 
what was inside of me? I had to feel what I felt 
even if it killed me. 

I’d wake up in the middle of the night when all 


66 BREAD GIVERS 


were asleep, and cry into the deaf, dumb darkness, 
“‘T hate my father. And I hate God most of all for 
bringing me into such a terr © le house.” 

More and more IJ began t. think inside myself, I 
don’t want to sell herring for the rest of my days. I 
want to learn something. I want to do something. 
I want some day to make myself for a person and 
come among people. But how can I do it if I live in 
this hell house of Father’s preaching and Mother’s 
complaining? 

And when I get a lover I don’t want Father ques- 
tioning out his wages, or calling him a meshumid be- 
cause he played the piano on the Sabbath. 

And then I thought, what kind of a man could I 
get if I smell from selling herring? A son from Zal- 
mon the fish-peddler? 

No! No one from Essex or Hester Street for me. 
I don’t want a man like Berel Bernstein whose head 
was all day on making money from the sweatshop. 
No, I wouldn’t even want one like Jacob Novak, even 
if he was a piano-player, if he ate the bread of his 
father who bossed him. I’d want an American-born 
man who was his own boss. And would let me be my 
boss. And no fathers, and no mothers, and no sweat- 
shops, and no herring! 


CHAPTER V 
MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 


E WERE sitting and eating our dinner 
when we heard the mail man’s whistle and 
our name called. 

I quickly ran downstairs and got a letter. It was 
for Fania. Many times before she had been getting 
them. But this was the first time that Father was 
around when one came. 

“For whom is the letter?”’ asked Father, taking it 
from my hand. 

“It’s for Fania,” I said. 

“Who can be writing to such a child?”’ And he 
tore open the letter and read: 


BELOVED, DEAREST ONE: 

How I long to shout to the world our happiness. I feel that 
you and I are the only two people alive in the world—the only 
people that know the secret meaning of existence. 

I have no diamond rings, no gifts of love that other lovers have 
for their beloved. My poetry is all I have to offer you. And so 
I dedicate my collected verses, “Poems of Poverty,” to you, be- 
loved. 

Morris. 


“Poems of Poverty!” cried Mother. ‘Ain’t it 
black enough to be poor, without yet making poems 
about it?” 

67 


68 BREAD GIVERS 


Father turned angrily on Mother. “Woman! 
Why didn’t you tell me what’s going on in this house? 
A man writes letters to my daughter and I’m told 
nothing about it?” 

“Ts it my fault that you’re away all the time, so 
busy working for God that you don’t know what’s 
going on in your own house? Are you a man like 
other men? Does your wife or your children lay in 
your head at all?” 

Into this father-and-mother fight, Fania came in. 

“Poems of Poverty!” Father shook the opened 
letter in Fania’s face. ‘“‘Who is this schnorrer who 
writes you love letters on wrapping paper?” 

“My letter! Why did you open my letter? It’s 
mine. You had no right to read it! It’s terrible 
to have to live in a house where even a letter is not 
one’s own.” And she snatched it from Father’s 
hand. | 

“Who is he? What is he? By what does he 
work?” Father demanded. 

“He works for newspapers,” Fania answered. 

*“And where does he sell them, from the sidewalk 
or has he a stand of his own?”’ 

“‘He sell papers? Why, he’s a writer, a poet.” 

“‘A writer, a poet you want for a husband? Those 
who sell the papers at least earn something. But 
what earns a poet? Do you want starvation and 
beggary for the rest of your days? Who’ll pay your 
rent? Who'll buy you your bread? Who'll put 
shoes on the feet of your children, with a husband who 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 69 


wastes his time writing poems of poverty instead of 
working for a living?” 

Father, once started, went right on, like a wound- 
up phonograph that couldn’t stop itself. 

*“Maybe you would like to go on working in the 
shop, to support your husband, after you’re married? 
Do you know what black life is before you if you tie 
yourself to a poet?” 

And then Father told us a Greek fairy tale he once 
read! The king of the gods wanted to divide up 
everything among those under him. To one he gave 
the sea, to another the stars, to another the earth, the 
sun, and so on. After everything was divided up, 
the poet woke from his dreams and asked for his part. 
**Where were you all this time, while everybody was 
fighting for his share of the world?” ‘“‘I was in the 
heaven of my dreams,” answered the poet. “Nu,” 
said the god. “If you can live in dreams, then you 
don’t need the things of this world. Go back to your 
dreams.”’ 

Father looked around to see how we all listened 
with open mouths to his smartness. Only Fania, 
on whom he pointed his preaching, only she pushed 
away his story with a toss of her head. 

““H’m! Only a fairy tale,’ she sniffed. ‘‘I’d 
rather have Lipkin and be poor, so long I have the 
man I love.” 

** How long will love last with a husband who feeds 
you with hunger? Even Job said, of all his suffer- 
ings, nothing was so terrible as poverty. A poor 


70 BREAD GIVERS 


man is a living dead one. Even dead you got to 
have money. The undertaker wouldn’t bury you, 
unless you have the price of a grave.” 

“Father!” I broke in, “didn’t you yourself say 
yesterday that poverty is an ornament on a good 
Jew, like a red ribbon on a white horse?” 

““Sure,” added Mother, “‘aren’t you always telling 
me that those whom God loves for the next world 
can’t have it good here?”’ 

“Woman! You compare a man who works for 
God, a man who holds up the flames of the Holy 
Torah before the world, to this schnorrer? Of what 
use are poets to themselves, or to anybody? Aren’t 
there enough beggars ea 

“But didn’t you say that the poorest beggars are 
happier and freer than the rich?” I dared question 
Father. “You said that a poor man never has to be 
afraid of thieves or robbers. He can walk alone in 
the middle of the night and fear nobody. Poor 
people don’t need locks on their houses. They can 
leave their doors wide open, because nobody will come 
to steal poverty. a 

“‘Blood-and-iron! Hold your mouth!” hollered 
Father. ‘“‘You’re always saying things I don’t ask 
you.” 

“But what will be the end of your driving the men 
away from the house?” said Mother. ‘‘Do you want 
a houseful of old maids on your neck? If these men 
are not good enough, why ain’t you smart enough to 
bring somebody better?” 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 71 


Father’s eyes suddenly lighted up with a new idea. 
You forgot how old was his capote, how threadbare 
his skullcap, so shining with young joy was his face. 

“Tl show you how quickly I can marry off the 
girls when [| put my head on it.” 

Yah,’ sneered Mother. ‘‘SYou showed me 
enough how quickly you can spoil your daughters’ 
chances the minute you mix yourself in. If you had 
only let Mashah alone, she would have been married 
to a piano-player.”’ 

**Did you want me to let in a man who plays on the 
Sabbath in our family? A piano-player has no more 
character than a poet.” 

*“Nu—Berel Bernstein was a man of character, 
a man who was about to become a manufacturer.” 

“But he was a stingy piker. For my daughters’, 
husbands I want to pick out men who are people in the 
world.” 

**Where will you find better men than those they 
can find for themselves?”’ 

“Tl go to old Zaretzky, the matchmaker. All the 
men in his list are guaranteed characters.” 

“But the minute you begin with the matchmaker 
you must have dowries like in Russia yet.”’ 

With me for their father they get their dowries in 
their brains and in their good looks.” 

“Yid! You’ve forgotten already that I was the 
beauty of the village. What good looks the children 
got is from me,” Mother laughed, straightening her- 
self up and glancing toward the mirror. 


/ 


72 BREAD GIVERS 


“Woman! If not for your pretty face I wouldn’t 
have now a houseful of females on my neck. But Pil 
show you how I can marry them off in one, two, three.” 

A few days after, as I came home, I saw a man 
talking to Fania. At first sight, I saw only his back, 
but I knew by the worn-out shabby coat and how 
his hair cried for a barber that it was Fania’s poet, 
Morris Lipkin. 

*‘T’ll talk to your father,” I heard him say to Fania. 
“Tl never give you up. He can’t know the depth 
of our love. How our lives are bound in one an- 
other.” 

“You don’t know my father,’’ Fania whispered. 
“He'll never listen to us.” 

“He must listen. He shall listen.” He put his 
arm around her. ‘‘Let me only tell him what our 
love is to us.” 

The stairs in the outside hall creaked under heavy 
shoes. Father with his pouncing footsteps was 
stamping ahead of another man. 

““He’s coming now!”’ Fania tried to draw away 
from Morris, but he only drew her closer. 

“Darling! Together we can fight the world.” 
His pale face, his burning eyes were aflame with the 
courage of his love. 

The door was pushed open. Father stood before 
them. 

Instantly Morris and Fania drew apart. 

“Reb Smolinsky ”—Morris came forward—“ Fania 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY = 73 


and I ”? But the words died in his throat, for 
Father without looking at him stepped back and 
pushed another man into the room. 

A big diamond was glittering from the man’s 
necktie and diamonds hollered from the man’s fingers. 

“Mr. Moe Mirsky! ‘These are my four daughters, 
Bessie, Mashah, Fania, and Sara,” Father announced. 
** And over there, by the stove, is my wife.” 

Moe Mirsky bowed politely and began to fuss with 
his tie, dazzling us with the glitter of his shining 
wealth. 

Father did not notice Lipkin any more than if the 
place where he stood was air. 

*‘Bring only some tea and jelly for the company,” 
Father ordered; his head high with pride at the rich 
company he brought. He himself handed around 
the tea that Mother brought over, and he passed 
Lipkin by as if he did not exist. 

Whiter than death grew Lipkin’s face. Stone- 
still he stood, his lids lowered over his shamed eyes. 
None of us dared look at him, but it burned through 
us, the hurt of his shame, and yet we too stood like 
helpless stone. 

Setting his own glass of tea down on the table, 
Father pushed around the chairs for every one. And 
then he deliberately took Lipkin’s chair away from 
the window where Lipkin was still standing and pulled 
it up to the table; and Father sat himself down in it, 
with his back toward Lipkin. 


74 BREAD GIVERS 


Through our half-closed eyes of shame, we felt, 
more than saw, Lipkin walk out stiffly like an un- 
wanted ghost. 

Moe Mirsky was quick to take in how the other 
man was frozen out by Father, but he pretended not 
to notice it. And as soon as the door closed behind 
Lipkin, Moe Mirsky gave us all a look over, and then 
his eyes lighted on Mashah, and he pushed his chair 
near her. 

Father began to brag about our smartness the way 
he always did before strangers. And Moe Mirsky, 
warmed with the tea, or fired by Mashah’s beautiful, 
sad face, laughed and entertained us all as if he had 
known us all his life. He told us about the different 
cities he travelled, the names of the grand hotels 
where he stopped at, the theatres he went to, and the 
big sales he made in diamonds. And before he left, 
he invited us all to go with him to Coney Island on 
Sunday. 

As soon as he had gone, Father turned to Mother, 
“Nu? How would you like this diamond-dealer for 
a son-in-law?” 

“Ach!” sighed Mother, a far-off look of longing 
gleaming in her eyes, “‘only to see my daughters 
settled in good luck! But what do you know about 
him? Who is he? What is he?”’ Mother clutched 
at Father’s arm in excited eagerness. 

‘‘A diamond-dealer! What more can you ask? 
The riches shines from him. The minute I saw him 
by the matchmaker, I said: This is the man I want for 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 75 


my daughter. You can see for yourself this man is a 
person of the world, and not a pale, half-starved poet.” 

Fania could hold herself in no longer. ‘‘ Father!” 
she burst out, ““‘why were you so mean, so brutally 
cruel to Lipkin?” 

“That poet would be the ruin of your life, and you 
wanted me to welcome him yet? Why, he hasn’t the 
money to get himself a decent haircut. Starvation 
cries from his face i 

“Poverty isnocrime. You had no right to insult 
him so before everybody, only because he’s poor.” 

Father’s eyes flashed with rage. ‘The impudence 
of that long-haired beggar—wanting to push himself 
into my family! I’m a person among people. How 
would I look before the world if I introduced such a 
hunger-squeezed nobody for a son-in-law?” 

“That diamond show window that you brought 
‘into the house can’t hold a candle before Lipkin’s 
brains. You think Lipkin will be poor always? 
You ought to see how hard he works by night and day 
at his writing. How can you tell what Lipkin’s 
future might yet be?” 

“A father knows the future because he’s older.” 
His strong hand pushed back and beat down all con- 
tradictions. “I can see your bitter end if you mar- 
ried such a schnorrer.”’ 

“IT know what I want for my happiness.” 

\“ Either you listen to what I say, or out you go of 
this house!”” Father pounded, the table with his fist. 
**Such shameless unwomanliness as a girl telling her 


76 BREAD GIVERS 


father this man I want to marry! Rifkeh!” He 
turned to Mother. “Did we ever know of such 
nonsense in the old country? Did you even give a 
look on me, or I on you till the wedding was all over?” 

Mother shook her head at Father with a funny 
smile. 

“Maybe if I had the sense of my daughters in 
America, I would have given you a good look over 
before the wedding.” 

In the stillness that followed Mother’s words, I was 
thinking: Suppose Mother had not felt like marry- 
ing Father, then where would all of us children be 
now? And here, in America, where girls pick out 
for themselves the men they want for husbands, how 
grand it would be if the children also could pick 
out their fathers and mothers. But my foolish, fly- 
ing thoughts were stopped by an angry cry from 
Fania. | 

“Tl sooner go out of this house than go to Coney 
Island with your walking jewellery store!” 

“TI certainly won’t go,” said Bessie. ‘“‘He didn’t 
even give a look on me.” 

“Only let me go,” I cried. “I never yet seen 
Coney Island.” 

“ Blood-and-iron!”’ Father pushed measide. ‘‘ You 
think because he’s a gentleman and invites the fam- 
ily for politeness that he has time to waste with 
children? If Fania don’t want to grab this chance, 
then you go with him, Mashah.” 

Mashah looked with her cold, tired eyes at Father. 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 77 


*“One man or another man, it’s all the same to me 
now.” 

And so it was Mashah’s luck to be the only one to 
go with Moe Mirsky to Coney Island. 

_ The next week Moe Mirsky brought Mashah a 
pair of diamond earrings and a diamond ring. 

* Nu—Rifkeh?”’ cried Father, examining the dia- 
monds after Moe Mirsky was gone. “Am I a judge 
of people? Didn’t I tell you from the first that I 
know how to pick out a man? With this diamond- 
dealer in the family, all our troubles are over. You'll 
see he'll cover Mashah with diamonds. And through 
her riches, all of us will get rich quick. Think only 
of the future for the other girls with a sister in the 
diamond business!” 

A few days after, Moe Micky told Mashah, “‘I got 
a chance to sell your diamonds at a big profit, and 
meanwhile I'll bring you yet bigger diamonds.” 

And so every few evenings Moe Mirsky kept chang- 
ing Mashah’s diamonds, taking the old diamonds one 
night and bringing other new diamonds the next 
night. 

Before the month was up Mashah became engaged. 
She didn’t care so much about Moe Mirsky or his 
diamonds. She didn’t care about any man at all. 
But like all of us she was sick and tired from the house 
and crazy to get away. 

Father was so excited with his success in getting 
Mashah engaged to a diamond-dealer that he wanted 
to show off more smartness. 


28 BREAD GIVERS 


“T?ll show you how quickly I can get another rich 
man for Fania, now that my brain got started with 
matchmaking,” he said to Mother. 

Bessie was threading the beads she had taken home 
for night work. Suddenly all the.beads in her lap 
dropped to the floor. ‘Let it all go to hell,” she 
cried. “I’m sick of life.’’ 

Of late Bessie was getting more and more bitter, be- 
cause it ate out her heart, when she saw that Father 
was thinking only of marrying the younger sisters © 
because he didn’t want to let go her wages. 

“Why do I kill myself for nothing?”’ Bessie went 
on, kicking the beads with her foot instead of picking 
them up. “Why should I be the burden bearer for 
them all?”? And she began to weep. 

“Old maid!” shouted Father. ‘‘Stop jumping out 
of your skin and making the whole house miserable 
with your salted tears.” 

Bessie rushed into the bedroom and slammed the 
door, and Father kept right on. “It’s only through 
me that Mashah got luck. If I put my head on it, 
I can just as quick get another man for Fania and 
show the neighbours that when Reb Smolinsky only 
wants, he can marry even two daughters in a day as 
easy as Rockefeller signs a check for a million dol- 
lars.” +S, 

And so the next day, Father brought another man 
from Zaretzky, the matchmaker. His name was 
Abe Schmukler and he was in the cloaks-and-suits 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 79 


business. He came from Los Angeles, at the other 
end of America, to buy cloaks and suits for his stores 
and get himself a wife. 

Abe Schmukler liked Fania at first sight. Fania 
wasn’t stuck on him and his cloaks and suits any 
more than Mashah was stuck on Moe Mirsky with his 
diamonds. But how could the girls stop to think 
whether they liked the men, or didn’t like the men, 
so long they only got the chance to run away from 
our house, where there would be no more Father’s 
preaching? 

At first, we thought that Fania would never take to 
Abe Schmukler, because she was still in love with her 
poet, even though he wasn’t around since that night 
that he walked out of the house like a dead ghost. 
And then she knocked us all over with surprise by the 
quick way in which she turned from the poor poet to 
the rich buyer and seller of cloaks and suits, and went 
out every night to uptown theatres with Abe Schmuk- 
ler. From the outside she looked all excited with 
happiness, because every day Abe Schmukler brought 
her new things: dresses, cloaks, suits, candies, and 
flowers, till all the girls on the block were green with 
envy. 

Abe Schmukler had only a month’s time in New 
York. Two weeks he already spent buying his 
cloaks and suits, and only two weeks he had left to get 
himself a wife. So he had to quicken his love with 
many presents. 


80 BREAD GIVERS 


And that’s how Father’s bragging that he could 
marry off his two daughters in one day really hap- 
pened. 

Every one knew that Mashah was not marrying 
Moe Mirsky for his diamonds. But Fania made all 
believe that she fell head over heels in love with her 
cloaks-and-suits millionaire. Only a night before the 
wedding, as Bessie, with biting envy in her eyes, 
watched Fania pack her trunk, Fania got into a 
nervous fit. She threw all her beautiful wedding 
presents down on the floor and burst out crying. 

“My God! Bessie! You’re cutting me with your 
eyes! What do youenvy? A broken héart?” 

With her feet she stamped on a black lace dress, 
trimmed with gold, wh ch Abe Schmukler had given 
her. ‘‘What do you envy? ‘The shine of these 
gilded rags with which I choke my emptiness? I 
love Lipkin. And [ll always love him. But even 
if Abe Schmukler was a rag-picker, a bootblack, I’d 
rush into his arms, only to get away from our house. 

If I seem so excited about Los Angeles, it’s 
only because it’s a dream city at the other end of the 
world, so many thousands of miles away from home.” 

But in the meantime, the whole tenement house 
where we lived, and every house on the block, the 
fish market, the butcher, the grocer, on the stoop and 
in the doorways, rang the excited news, from lips to 
lips, like fire in the air, that there was to be a double 
wedding in our house. 

Everywhere, I saw groups of people whispering 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 81 


and looking after us, as though their eyes were tear- 
ing themselves out of their heads with envy. When 
Mother passed with her market basket, the neigh- 
bours stood back with choked breath, as though she 
was already Mrs. Vanderbilt, coming to give Christ- 
mas presents among the poor. 

“Ach! How the sun shines for them!” 

“Luck smiles on them!” 

‘For them is America a golden country!”’ 

*“A diamond-dealer and a cloaks-and-suits mil- 
lionaire!”’ 

*“Music plays for them!” 

“Life dances for them!” 

“We must dry our heads worrying for bread, while 
they bathe themselves in milk and soak themselves in 
honey!”’ 

It made me feel bad to see how everybody began 
to hate us because we hada littleluck. Dogs envying 
another dog a bone. They were only bread-and- 
butter marriages, like in Europe, and all the neigh- 
bours eating themselves out with envy. 

A month after the double wedding, we were seated 
at the table for dinner. Mother skimmed off the 
fat part of the potato soup, and carefully picked out 
all the little pieces of suet and fried onions for 
Father’s plate, and handed it to him. 

“Woman!” Father frowned. “Why have you 
no meat for my dinner this whole week? With the 
hard brain work I do day and night, I can’t live on the 
flavour of onions!” 


82 BREAD GIVERS 


“But the meat went up a nickel a pound, and the 
two girls married, there are two wages less with which 
to buy.” 

“With one sonin-law a diamond-dealer and 
another a cloaks-and-suits manufacturer I ought to 
have at least one man’s meal a day. If I were a 
butcher, a baker, a thickneck, a money-maker, if I 
did less for my children, then maybe they would 
have done more for me. But from the day they 
were born, I held up for them the flame of the Holy 
Torah. It was I, my brains, my knowledge of the 
world, that brought them such golden luck mar- 
riages—and see their gratitude!” 

The door opened; Mashah, with a wild worried 
look in her eyes, entered, but Father was too excited 
with his wrongs to see her. 

“Woe to a man who has females for his offspring,” 
he went on. ‘The thanklessness of these daughters! 
Getting them such rich husbands—and they forget- 
ting their father as though their luck dropped down 
to them from the sky. . + 

He caught sight of Mashah, but he was too much 
in his thoughts to see how terrible she looked. 
“Nu, Mrs. Moe Mirsky,” he reproached. “‘With a 
husband a diamond-dealer, isn’t it your duty to see 
that your father has at least meat fe 

“Meat! I didn’t even taste bread to-day!’ The 
words tore themselves out of Mashah’s throat. 
““Moe Mirsky, a diamond-dealer? Oh-h-h! The 


>? 


liar—the faker! 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 83 


She sank into a chair. What she had told had 
used up her last strength. 

“Where are all the diamonds he gave you?” 
Father stared with innocent eyes at her. 

“Those diamonds weren’t his. . . . 

“Not his”? A puzzled look came into Father’s 
face. ‘Why, he said he was a dealer se 

“But he lied. He was only a salesman in a 
jewellery store.” Her voice was faint with tired- 
ness. “He lost his job—lost it—because he let me 
wear the diamonds he was sent to sell. : 
The day after the wedding, it happened. I was too 
shamed to tell you then. But now, I’m so starved, 
I could hold myself in no longer. I had to come 
for—for something to eat.”’ 

“Empty-head!” shouted Father. ‘Where were 
your brains? Didn’t you go out with the man a 
whole month before you were married? Couldn’t 
you see he was a swindler and a crook when you 
talked to him?” 

““Couldn’t I see?’ cried Mashah. “I thought you 
said yousaw. You said you knew yourself a person 
on first sight. You picked him out! You brought 
him to the house! I didn’t care about any man any 
more. I only wanted to run away from home.” 

“You wanted to run away because you were a 
lazy empty-head. So now you got it for your lazi- 
ness. I always told you your bad end. As you 
made your bed, so you got to sleep on it.” 

For the week that Mashah stayed in our house, 


99 


i 
/ 
84 BREAD GIVERS ) 


| 

not one day passed that Father did not remind her, 
over and over again, that there was no more hope 
for her, for this world or for the next. Never again 
would she be able to lift up her head among people. 
But this time his preaching was in a whispering 
voice, because no matter how the shoe pinched us, 
we had to hide our shame from the neighbours. 

At last, her husband came with the news that he 
got a job as a shoe clerk, so worn down was Mashah 
by Father’s never-ending pictures of the hell that 
was waiting for her, that she was glad to leave our 
house, even though her diamond-dealer of a husband 
had come down to be a shoe clerk. So crushed, 
so broken was she, as she took her husband’s arm, 
that Bessie, who was always jealous of Mashah 
because of her luck with men, Bessie took a dollar 
out of her purse and slipped it, unseen, into Ma- 
shah’s empty one. 

Now that the puffed balloon of Mashah’s luck 
match crashed to nothingness, Father still fanned 
himself with pride in Fania’s marriage. “At least 
one daughter takes after her father,” he soothed 
himself. “‘At least one child listened to her father’s 
wise words. One child has remained a credit to me.” 

For six months we didn’t get any letters from 
Fania. She only sent us fancy postal cards with 
pictures of orange trees and beautiful bungalows 
surrounded with flowers that grew all winter. Then 
we got from her the first real letter. It told that 
Abe Schmukler was a gambler. He spent his nights 


ee) ee 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 85 


in one poker game after another. So lonely did she 
get, that she wanted to leave all the riches of cloaks 
and suits, and the beautiful houses with fruits 
and flowers of that dream city, and come back to our 
black, choking tenements in New York, and go back 
to work in a shop if only Father would let her. 

But Father answered her back a quick letter. 
“Don’t dare come and disgrace me before the 
neighbours,” he wrote. “You had aright to find out 
what kind of a man your husband was before you 
married him. The neighbours here wouldn’t believe 
that you left him. They will say that he threw you 
out. And don’t forget it, you are already six months 
older—six months less beautiful—less desirable, in 
the eyesofaman. Your chances for marrying again 
are lost for ever, because no man wants what an- 
other turns down. As you made your bed, so you 
must sleep on it.”’ 

“What are you always blaming everything on 
the children?” I burst out at Father. “ Didn’t you 
yourself make Fania marry Abe Schmukler when 
she cried she didn’t want him? You know yourself 
how she ate out her heart for Morris Lipkin es 

“Hold your mouth!” And he walked away as if 
I was nothing. 

**T’ll never let no father marry me away to any old 
yok,” I threw after him. And he made believe that 
he didn’t hear me. 

It was the same night that I found Fania’s love 
letters from Morris Lipkin. 


86 BREAD GIVERS 


Father had gone to his lodge meeting as usual. | 
went to bed, but I tossed about in anger over Father. 
Then I thought that I couldn’t sleep because the 
mattress was so lumpy. So I got up, lifted the 
mattress to turn it over. And there, spread out on 
the spring, were bunches of papers. They were 
covered with fine handwriting. I picked up one 
after another and begantoread. . . . “Love of 
my heart.” . . . Then I read one after another. 
“Dearest, loveliest! I feel you in my arms. I kiss 
you and press you close to my heart!” ‘Adorable 
precious one, you are the very breath of me. This 
day is blank with emptiness because I cannot see you. 
I can only soothe my aching heart reading poems of 
love. Here are words that might have rushed to 
you, loved one, out of my own heart: 


“Come to me in my dreams, and then by day 
I shall be well again, 
For then the night will more than pay 
The hopeless, hopeless longing of the day, 
The hopeless, hopeless longing of the day.” 


On and on, I read. I forgot everything until I 
heard the stamp of Father’s footsteps. And I 
quickly hid the letters and jumped into bed. 

All night long I dreamed of Morris Lipkin. It 
wasn’t any more the Morris Lipkin whose hair was 
always crying for the barber. It was a new and 
wonderful Morris Lipkin. His eyes looked into my 
eyes. All those beautiful letters of love that he had 
written to Fania, I felt he had written to me. In 


MORRIS LIPKIN WRITES POETRY 87 


the morning, when I[ woke up, I found, crumpled in 
my hand, tight to my breast, the letter that said, “T 
love you. I love you. I love you!” 

That morning, to work, Morris Lipkin was every- 
where I looked. When I got to the shop, the clatter- 
ing noise of the machines was the music of his words 
of love to me. 

For days and weeks, I lived only in Morris Lipkin 
and in his letters. NNoontime, when I was eating my 
lunch, I read them over and over again till I knew 
them by heart. 

One evening, [ couldn’t help it any more, I had to go 
tothelibrary where Faniausedto meet him. Myheart 
stopped. There he was! What a pale face! What 
sad eyes! Ach! I knew what it was to be in love. 

I took a book from the shelf and sat down near him. 
He was so beautiful. God, how I shivered. When he 
walked out, I followed him. I walked so near him! 

“Fool! What are you so scared of—what are you 
so scared of!’ I was pinching myself to speak to 
him. And there I let him cross the street to go into 
his house. 

The next night, I fixed my hair just the way Ma- 
shah did and ran to the library. And all evening 
again I sat there like a yok with my heart in my 
mouth, staring at him. 

The library was already closing, and he was the 
last one out. He was still dreaming, his head in the 
air. He walked past me without even seeing me. 


‘Hello! Morris Lipkin!’ I grabbed him by the 


88 BREAD GIVERS 


sleeve. And then I couldn’t say another word more. 
We walked half the block and yet I couldn’t speak. 
“What do you want?” he asked. 

Before I knew what I was doing, I was running 
away from him like a crazy. 

“What a fool he’ll think me!’’ I sobbed into my 
pillow half the night. As I quieted down with my 
crying, it became so clear in my head what I should 
have said to him: “I love you. I ask nothing. I want 
nothing. Only let me love you. I'll leave my father 
and mother and follow you to the end of the earth.” 

All by myself I poured out my love to him in the 
most wonderful words. 

Then one day, going to work, as I turned the block, 
there! I ran right into him. All my thoughts and 
dreams from days and weeks stumbled out of me. 
‘*I—oh, Morris—I—I-——_”’ 

He stared. ‘“‘What’s the matter with you?” 

“Oh—Morris—I got to tell you—I love you.” 

“You silly little kid.’ He burst out laughing. 

Something beautiful that had built itself up in my 
heart all these days and nights, weeks and months, 
had fallen on top of me and crushed me. 

For a long, long time after, I could feel nothing 
but the hurt of his laugh. Then one night when the 
whole house was thick with sleep I jumped out of 
bed and tore up into nothing every one of those love 
letters, and as I stamped the pieces under my feet, I 
felt I stamped for ever love and everything beautiful 
out of my heart. 


CHAPTER VI 
THE BURDEN BEARER CHANGES HER BURDEN 


WORKED in a paper-box factory, and I was 
| the quickest “hand” on the floor. 

“Give only a look on that little nothing!” 
the boss would whisper to those around. “Only 
skin and bones—but such quick hands! It burns in 
her an engine!’ 

I was the thinnest, smallest girl in our shop, and I 
earned by piecework bigger wages than the big wo- 
men. And yet, when I’d bring home the wages to 
Father, he’d never let me have the money to buy 
myself something I needed. 

A tenth of the children’s wages Father always used 
to give tocharity. And then he belonged to so many 
societies and lodges that even without our ever get- 
ting anything we wanted for ourselves, the money 
didn’t stretch enough to pay for all the charities 
Father had to have. 

“Gazlin!” cried Mother. ‘‘It’s freezing cold and 
Sara got to get a warm coat for the winter. She’s 
already a young lady. She can’t wear a shawl any 
more. Suppose you stop for a while to do charity 
with the tenth of her wages and let her have her own 
money for the clothes she needs to go to work.” 

89 


90 BREAD GIVERS 


“Woman! Stop my charities! It’s like stopping 
the breath of God in me. It says in the Holy Torah, 
‘No man is too poor to help those that are poorer 
than himself.’ Can I shut my heart to the cry of 
those starving Russians when they send me those 
begging letters for help?” 

“So with the blood money of your children’s 
wages, you got to feed the starving Russians, thou- 
sands of miles away.” 

“Woman! I ask you by your conscience, who 
shall help the poor if not the poor?” 

“Nu, if you got to feed the starving Russians, 
then stop at least to give away so much money on 
sO many societies and lodges.” 

“Those societies I belong to are more to me than 
my life. I’m not living for myself. I have to go 
among people. Would you want me to stop my dues 
to the Convalescent Home that takes care of the 
poor sick from hospitals? Or the Old People’s 
Home that is sheltering the poor homeless ones in their 
old age? Should I take my little mite away from 
the Free Day Nursery that is taking care of the little 
helpless babies whose mothers must go to work? 
Or could I stop my dues to the Free Hebrew School, 
the one place in America that keeps alive the flame 
of the Holy Torah?” 

It was no use talking. Father was like stone in his 
high purpose of living for God and working for the 
good of the world. | 

And now in addition to holding up the flame of 


THE BURDEN BEARER or 


the Holy Torah before America, Father got himself 
in the matchmaking business. People would pay 
him sometimes for matching them together. But 
before he got the money in his hand he already knew 
of some poor widow, or a helpless orphan, miles 
away, who needed it more than his own wife and 
children who were right under his nose, so close that 
he couldn’t see them. 

From the time he married his two daughters off in 
one day, all the people of the block looked up to 
Father as the smartest matchmaker of America. 

Widows and widowers, young men who were look- 
ing for girls, and girls who were looking for men, 
fathers and mothers who had sons and daughters to 
get rid of, used to come to Father for advice. 

Once Father wrote out his own ‘“‘ad” in the 
Ghetto News, something like this: 


Reb Smolinsky, the old, reliable matchmaker. Girls and 
widows, with five hundred to five thousand dollars dowry. All 
kinds of men, doctors, lawyers, wealthy widowers. Put your 
future in my hands and I’ll settle you with good luck for life. 


When the wife of Zalmon the fish-pedd’er died and 
left him six children, he came to Father and said, 
“In another week, the thirty days after my wife’s 
death will be up. So I could marry myself again. 
Have you got something good for me on your list?” 

Father gave him a quck look over. His black, 
greasy beard was spotted with scales from the fish. 
He had a big wart on his nose and his thick red lip 


92 BREAD GIVERS 


was cracked open in the middle. It smelled from 
him yards away, the fish he was selling. And he 
breathed thickly from stuffing himself with too much 
eating. 

“Your wife ain’t yet cold in the grave,” said 
Father. “Why are you in such a hurry to tie your- 
self with another woman on your hands? Can’t 
you have a little rest?” 

Well, I can’t stand it any more from the children. 
They’re a’ways fighting and running wild in the 
streets. [here wasn’t a cooked meal in the house 
since my wife died. The dirt grows like yeast. 
The children eat only what you buy from cans. I 
eat in the restaurant. But I can’t take the children 
with me. It would cost too much. I like it better 
to have my meals cooked for me, in my own house. 
So I got to have a wife.” 

“How much are you worth?” Father asked. 

Zalmon the fish-peddler stuck up his chest. ‘I’m 
a rich man now. I got a thousand dollars from two 
lodges for my wife’s death and I found $90 more 
tied up in her stocking. And my fish business is 
growing b gger every day. I no more sell from the 
pushcart. I got a basement store now. And a 
man to help me.” 

Father turned to the paper on the wall where he 
had written out the list of men and women that 
wanted to marry themselves. 

‘The horse-radish woman also got lodge money for 


her husband’s death,’? Father said. ‘“‘That’s a 


THE BURDEN BEARER 93 


fitting match for you. Horse radishes and fish would 
go well together.”’ 

“That old yentch for me? No—I want no old 
ones again. I had enough of it with the last one. 
May she rest in peace.” 

** How old are you, yourself?” 

“Tm fifty-six. But if I married the right woman 
for me, I’d throw off twenty years from my age. 
Maybe you could find me a girl.” 

Zalmon took out from his pocket a greasy roll of 
bills and gave one to Father. “‘Here’s a little ad- 
vance commission for you, so you should try your 
best for me. I’m not a stingy. I'll pay you well 
if you could find me a girl.” 

“With enough money, you could get even the 
President’s daughter, in America.” | 

“But she must be good-looking,” said Zalmon. 
““And she mustn’t be lazy and she mustn’t curse. I 
had enough cursing with the last one. May she 
rest in peace. . . . The right woman would 
have a grand home by me. My wife used to get up 
four o'clock in the morning to help me with the 
pushcart. But now! got a man to help me and my 
new wife I could make for a lady with nothing to 
do but stay home and cook for me and clean the 
house and look after the children.” 

Zalmon snuffed tobacco in his nose and then 
handed some to Father. ‘“‘My new wife could eat 
from the best—carp, flounders, pike—anything she 
could enly wish herself to have she’d have by me. 


94 BREAD GIVERS 


I’d buy new furniture for the house and she'll have 
my wife’s Sabbath fur coat and her gold watch and 
chain. You ought to see the heavy thickness of that 
chain.” Zalmon took out from his pocket a pink 
satin box and, opening it, he lifted out a long, thick, 
shiny chain, on which hung a gold watch. 

Father ran his fingers over the glittering gold; 
then he grabbed Zalmon with both hands by the 
front of his coat. 

*“‘Depend yourself on me, my good friend,” he said. 
“Tl find the right woman for you quicker than any 
matchmaker in America. Give me only a few days 
and [’ll settle you for life with good luck.” 

That very evening Father said to Mother: ““Zalmon 
the fish-peddler is looking to marry himself to a 
young girl. With the lodge money for his wife’s 
death he’s become a rich man now, and maybe this 
would be a good chance for us to get rid of our old 
maid.” 

Mother dropped the dishes she was washing back 
into the sink and turned upon Father. “On all my 
enemies your matchmaking! Didn’t you show 
enough your smartness picking out a crook for 
Mashah and a gambler for Fania? And now for Bessie 
you want an old fish-peddler with a houseful of 
children and a wife not yet cold in the grave.” 

“Shah! Shah! Woman! Zalmon is no crook. 
Zalmon is no gambler. I didn’t know the other men 
from before. I depended myself on Zaretzky to 
give me a guaranty for their characters, when 


THE BURDEN BEARER 95 


Zaretzky himself is the biggest liar in America. But 
Zalmon we know, in and out, for years already. We 
know he’s honest. JHe’s religious. He’s charitable. 
Everybody knows how he gives away all the left- 
over fish, on Friday, to the Orphans’ Home. 

“But he’s an old man. And Bessie would have 
six wild children to cook and wash for.” 

*“Wouldn’t she have it better by Zalmon than 
working inthe shop? She’d have a home, a husband. 
People would respect her and not point their fingers 
on her for a cursed old maid that no man wants. 
Besides, she’d be a mother to six orphans.”’ 

“These orphans are the worst gangsters of the 
block. They’ll torture the life out of her.” 

**So you want the old maid to remain in my house 
and torture my life with her crankiness? She’s not 
any more what she used to be. Before, she used to 
hand me her wages with the highest respect. But 
now, the devil got into her and she’s jumping out of 
her skin finding fault with me. I’m nota good father 
to her. No wonder it says in the Torah, ‘Woe toa . 
man who has females for his offspring’ !’’ 

‘And woe to us women who got to live in a Torah- 
made world that’s only for men.” Mother’s eyes 
twinkled with fun even in her anger. But Father 
never saw the joke on him, so full was he with man’s 
troubles from women that the prophets foretold. 

“Women were always the curse of men,” he went 
on, “but when they get older they’re devils and 
witches. That’s why it says in the Torah that a 


96 BREAD GIVERS 


man has a right to hate an old maid for no other 
reason but because no man had her, so no man wants 
her.”’ i 

“‘Berel Bernstein wanted her,” Mother flung at 
him. 

“But that stingy only wanted a free hand for his 
shop. Now is her chance to get a real home, all — 
waiting for her. Zalmon would give her everything a 
woman could only wish herself, a fur coat, new furni- 
ture for the house, and six children already there.” 

Mother gave Father a long, hopeless look. Then 
she pushed up her shoulders and, shaking her head, 
went back to the stove. 

When Zalmon the fish-peddler came back in a 
few days, Father said, “I got a luck match for you, 
if you only want to pay the price. A girl—young, 
innocent, a picture for the eyes. She’d cook for,you, 
and wash for you, and carry the whole burden of 
your house for you. Your children will have a 
mother and you will have a wife like in the good old 
days and not one of those new smart women that 
boss their. husbands. She’s quiet as a dove and 
she'll look up to a man with proper respect.” 

**Tell me only quick—when can I see her? Who is 
she?” 

For a whole minute Father stared into Zalmon’s 
excited eyes. He opened his lips to speak, but stopped 
silent for another minute, to dig into Zalmon the im- 
portance of his words. 

“Tt’s =my—own—daughter—~Bessie.” Father 


THE BURDEN BEARER 97 


stopped between each two words, like an actor on the 
stage. 

Zalmon’s eyes jumped with gladness and he lis- 
tened to Father like a thirsty man sipping wine. 

“A golden child with a diamond heart,” Father 
went on, “from the time she was no higher than this 
table she worked for me. To this day she hands me 
all her wages. A good daughter makes a good 
wife.” | 

“Good luck on us all!’ With great joy Zalmon 
shook Father’s hand. “It’s an honour for me to be 
your son-in-law. Your daughter made a name for 
herself how she worked the nails off her fingers for 
your family.” 

Father beamed with the bigness of charity on Zal- 
mon. “See what I’m giving up for you! And all 
Pll ask from you is a little money to start myself in 
business, so as to let go her wages.” 

“Sure. If it’s only a matter of a few hundred 
dollars, Pll do the right thing by you.” 

They shook hands again and wished themselves 
again good luck for settling the match so quickly. 
“It’s a great honour for me to be your son-in-law,”’ 
Zalmon said, over and over again. 

“You hear it, woman?” Father called to Mother. 
“You hear only what Zalmon says? My own wife 
and children don’t appreciate me. It’s only stran- 
gers that know themselves on my good heart.”’ 

Bessie had no sooner come home from work than 
Father said to her, “‘Zalmon the fish-peddler wants 


98 BREAD GIVERS 


to marry himself to you. You'd have a good home 
and you wouldn’t have to work any more in a shop. 
His wife’s gold watch and chain and her Sabbath fur 
coat will be yours, and fi 

“Don’t,” cried Bessie, shuddering. ‘‘I hate Zal- 
mon. I hate the smell of fish. If he were the last 
man on earth I wouldn’t marry him.”’ 

“So this is the thanks for all I’ve done for you? 
This is how you thank me for getting you a man when 
you're such a dried-up old maid that no one wants to 
give a look on you. But this much I’ll warn you! 
If you don’t grab this chance quick, you’re lost for 
ever. Now you're so old and cranky, even from the 
shop they'll throw you out.” 

Bessie got into a nervous fit, crying and tearing 
her hair and cursing the day she was born. But the 
next evening, when she came home, there was laid 
out on the bed a new velvet dress, richer than any- 
thing she had ever seen. It looked like a fifty-dollar 
dress from Fifth Avenue. Father had spent all 
afternoon, bargaining for the $20 Zalmon had given 
him, the finest dress in the Grand Street show 
window. ’ 

Bessie’s eyes lighted like a young girl’s at sight of 
the new dress. But her face got old again when she 
realized that it was only to show herself off to Zal- 
mon. 

“Dress myself up for him—no!’ said Bessie. 
“Only once I dressed myself up fora man. But then 
I loved him.” 


THE BURDEN BEARER 99 


While she was yet talking, the door opened and a 
smell of perfume filled our kitchen. A man entered. 
He held in his hand a big box tied with red ribbon. 
He wore a new black suit and looked just like those 
wax figures in the show windows where they have 
clothes to hire for weddings. Above the white 
starched collar was a young, clean-shaved face. 
Only by the thickness of his bushy eyebrows, and 
the wart on his nose, did we begin to recognize that 
this new-shaved man was Zalmon, the old fish- 
peddler, without his beard. 

For a minute, Father and Mother stared in silent 
wonder at him. He put down his box, puffed out his 
starched shirt front, smiling, much pleased with 
himself, into Father’s and Mother’s bewildered eyes. 

“Is this you, your own self?’ Father rushed for- 
ward and kissed Zalmon’s clean, new-shaved face 
on both cheeks. ‘‘You look more’n twenty years 
younger already. I’d never recognize you for the 
same man.” 

Mother wrung her hands in make-believe worry. 
‘Woe is me! A millionaire is in our house, and no 
carpet on the floor, no wine on the table!” 

She pushed forward Father’s chair with a back 
and a cushion to sit on, and began dusting it with 
her new blue-checked apron. ‘‘Here’s our best 
chair! My Rockefeller prince! Do us the honour 
to sit yourself down on it.” 

Father and Mother kept touching Zalmon’s new 
clothes with the tips of their fingers, and staring at 


100 BREAD GIVERS 


him as though to make sure he was real. With his 
beard off, his new-bought bridegroom clothes, and 
his hair barbered short and pasted down with vase- 
line, and soaked in perfume in place of the old fish 
smells, Zalmon really shined like a rich Grand Street 
millionaire. No one could believe how this old fish- 
peddler could make himself such a dressed-up Ameri- 
can man. But Bessie would not even look at him. 
She stood with her back turned and gazed down the 
open airshaft, an expression on her face of a person 
ready to jump out of the window and make an end of 
life. 

“Here, Bessie my child! Why so_ bashful?” 
Father jerked her arm and gave her a pull forward. 
“‘Company came for you.” 

Bessie stood like wood as Zalmon put his box on the 
table, and with both hands on his heart he bowed 
before her, as if she were a queen. No sooner had 
Zalmon seated himself than Father walked over to 
the door and, with a wink to Mother, he said, “I 
suppose the young people would like to talk them- 
selves out alone,’ and he went out with Mother and 
closed the door. 

*“T brought you here my wife’s fur coat,” said 
Zalmon, pushing the box to Bessie across the table. 
*“My daughter Yenteh has eyes on it, so I quickly 
brought it here for you. I would rather see the coat 
on you. It costs me enough money.” 

Bessie did not even look up, but kept braiding and 
unbraiding the fringes of the tablecloth. 


THE BURDEN BEARER IOI 


“My wife, may she rest in peace, didn’t wear it 
more’n a few times for the Sabbath only. But you, 
you could wear it for every day.” 

“1 don’t like fur coats. You better give it to 
your daughter Yenteh.’’ Bessie slapped the words 
at him, but he licked them up like honey. 

“You good heart! I know how you always like 
to give away everythng. But you shall have not 
only the coat. But I even brought you my wife’s 
gold watch and chain.”’ And he spread his present 
on the table before her. 

Bessie drew back as though there was a catching 
sickness in the touch of the dead wife’s things. 

“I don’t care for jewellery.”’ The words dropped 
from her throat like chunks of ice, but Zalmon melted 
her frozen words in his craziness to get himself 
married again. 

“Ach! You golden goodness!’ Zalmon reached 
out to grab Bessie’s hand, but she quickly hid her 
hands under the tablecloth. “‘My old wife, may 
she rest in peace, was only happy when she could 
shine up the street like a walking jewellery store. 
Only to spend and to spend, lay in her head. But 
you are only to save and to save, just like a savings 
bank. 

“T will give you a grand life by me. I’m a good 
man. I got a soft heart. A young wife could do 
anything she wants with me. If I give her money 
to buy anything, she don’t have to tell me how much. 
change she got left. I will hold you like a crown on 


Yd 


102 BREAD GIVERS 


my head. Anything you only wish yourself you'd 
have.” 

Still Bessie sat cold as stone. And I was wonder- 
ing, how could a grown-up man, like Zalmon, who 
had sense enough to sell fish—how could he be so 
foolish about-a woman. How could a man smart 
enough to tell a carp from a flounder go on showering 
love bargains on a woman without seeing that his 
grand words are like galling poison to her bitter heart. 
But the poor innocent Zalmon went blindly on, talk- 
ing his head off until Father and Mother came back 
to see how things were going on. 

One look at Bessie, and Father saw how all the 
chickens he had been counting from the money that 
Zalmon was to give him were not yet hatching in the 
icy air of Bessie’s coldness. 

“Daughter mine!’ cried Father, giving her a pinch 
in the arm. ‘“‘Why don’t you serve some tea and 
jelly for the company?” 

Glad for the chance to turn her back on Zalmon, 
Bessie rushed to the stove and began to prepare tea. 

“Nu Zalmon,” said Father, in a loud whisper. 
*“Isn’t she a light for the eyes! And quiet as a dove. 
And looking up to a man with that highest respect as 
only women in the good old days used to have.” 

‘Her cooking! You ought to taste her gefulte 
fish! Her tzimes! It melts in the mouth with a 
thousand tastes of Heaven. Her fried potato 
lotkes—in the dearest restaurant you can’t buy 


THE BURDEN BEARER 103 


anything so grand!’ Mother piled up Father’s 
praises till the tea was brought. 

Father and Mother kept laughing and talking 
and singing Bessie’s praises as they drank the tea. 
Only Bessie couldn’t speak. Only she kept silent 
and miserable with the tortured frightened eyes of a ° 
person torn on a rack by the hair and by the feet. 

Father patted Zalmon by the shoulder and 
beamed on Bessie as though she were the apple of 
his eye. 

*“My dear daughter worked so hard till the last 
minute, she didn’t have a chance to put on her new 
dress. . . . Go, put on your new dress,” urged 
Father, stroking Bessie’s head, as if his old maid was 
his one and only young child. | 

Bessie kept mechanically stirring the tea that she 
could not drink. ry 

“Come, daughter mine,” Father went on, spread- 
ing his sweet salesman’s talk so thick that I was 
afraid that even Zalmon would see through it. ‘“‘Let 
our guest see that he’s not the only one with new 
clothes in this house. Show him how you can shine 
in something new.” 

“Oh, I can’t! I can’t!’ came from Bessie’s tight 
throat. 

“Shure you can,’ Mother insisted. ‘“‘Zalmon 
dressed himself up all in your honour, and you got to 
do him the honour back.” 

To escape again from Zalmon’s eyes, Bessie went 


104 BREAD GIVERS 


into the bedroom and put on her new dress with un- 
willing, dead hands. She dropped down wearily 
on the bed, unable to drag herself back to the kitchen 
where they were waiting for her. 

**Nu, little heart, why does it take you so long to 
dress?’’ Father called. 

With biting, angry lips Bessie arose and returned 
to her seat at the table. 

But Father insisted that she stand up in fe cit of 
them and turn herself around like a dancer, so that 
Zalmon could see all the fancy stitches and every bit 
of the gold braid that trimmed the dress. 

*“You see how she could shine and make herself 
for a fine lady if she would only not be so bashful.” 
Father laughed into Zalmon’s admiring eyes. . 
- “And she sewed it up all herself, every stitch of 
it,’ lied Mother. ‘Such golden hands is like money 
in the bank. Think only how much money you can 
save if your wife can do her own sewing.” 

Bessie’s face grew red with shame at the fake talk 
they were making to sell her over to Zalmon. But 
at last there came an end to the lies that Father and 
Mother could think of. And Zalmon had already 
said out all the love-bargaining speeches to Bessie. 
He couldn’t think of anything more to say. His eyes 
began to grow red and heavy with drowsiness and he 
jerked himself up from a sleepy nod and rose to go. 

“From now on, you must make yourself at home 
by us,” said Mother. 

“Don’t keep yourself for a guest.” Father shook 


THE BURDEN BEARER 10S 


Zalmon’s hand warmly. ‘‘I already feel you’re one 
of our own.” 

No sooner had the door closed after Zalmon than 
Father turned on Bessie, hot with anger. 

“Old maid!’ he cried. ‘“‘Why did you sit there 

like a lump of ice? If not for me and your mother 
coming in on time, the whole play would have gone 
to the devil. Why are you holding yourself up with 
pride, that your hair is turning gray, that your face 
is growing black and yellow with age? [It’s only be- 
cause Zalmon is such an innocent, good heart that he 
takes my word for the lies of praise I tell about 
RO ei pa ad) 
“Give only a look on this!’ Mother picked up 
the gold watch and chain with one hand and with 
the other she reached for the coat. “ Red-silk lining 
and sealskin fur. What more do you want from a 
man?” 

““Fish—fish—three times a day, carp, flounder, 
pike.” Bitterly Zalmon’s promised bill of fare 
dropped from Bessie’s tight lips. Then she ran 
into the bedroom and slammed the door behind her. 

And all that night, long after Father and Mother 
were asleep, Bessie sobbed into my arms. “I can’t 
stand it any more at home, and I can’t stand Zal- 
mon the fish-peddler.”’ 

A few nights after, Zalmon came again. He wore 
the same hired bridegroom’s suit. But this time, 
clinging to his long coat-tails, was little five-year-old 
Benny, his youngest child. 


106 BREAD GIVERS 


“He ran after me so wild that he fell and hurt 
himself.”” Zalmon pointed to the scratch and smear 
of blood on the boy’s knee. “So I-had to bring him 
to you. Maybe you would tie up his hurt.” 

Benny looked up with wide, innocent eyes at 
Bessie. 

*‘T lost my garter by the bed and I can’t find it,” 
he said, pulling at his loose stocking. 

Only the front of his face was washed. ‘The neck 
and the ears streaked with dirt. But there was 
something so fresh, so beautiful inside him that it 
shone out of his eyes. You could not help loving 
him. Bessie sat little Benny on the table and 
washed off the scratch on his knee and then looked 
about in the scrap bag for a piece of elastic for a 
garter. As soon as she fixed his stocking in its place 
she found a rip in the child’s sleeve that was tied up 
with safety pins and she took off his little jacket to 
mend it. | 

“Who'd believe that this suit was once new,” said 
Zalmon, watching Bessie sew. ‘‘He used to wear it 
only for the Sabbath, and last week I let him wear 
it once, and all the dirt off the gutters is on it now, 
because he’s always running wild in the streets.”’ 

*“1’m always waiting in the street for my mamma 
to come home,” said Benny, “‘but she don’t come 
back. They put herin a box and she can’t come out.” 

With a sob in her throat, Bessie’s arm went out to 
the child and she drew him up to her lap and held 
him tightly against her heart. Little Benny began 


THE BURDEN BEARER 107 


to prattle about his childish joys and woes. He 
showed her the gold ring on his dirty little finger 
which he had found that day in a penny bag of 
candy, and the blue mark on his arm where Yenteh, 
his big sister, had pinched him. And then, as his 
voice trailed off in drowsiness, Bessie began humming 
and rocking him to sleep. 

The child seemed to put new life into her. A 
young, rosy look came into her gray face, as though 
all the frozen ice in her heart melted in the sunshine 
of a new spring. 

Zalmon watched, silently, Bessie with the sleeping 
child in her arms. He forgot the stupid love- 
bargaining of the first night, he forgot to complain 
of the selfishness of his old wife, and the woes of his 
motherless house. Into his ox-like eyes came a new 
light of human understanding. 
~ When little Benny had run after him that evening, 
he tried to push him back, afraid the child would be 
in the way of his courting. And here, before his 
eyes, he saw the child unlock the love that his fur coat 
and the gold watch and chain and all his thought- 
out love-bargaining speeches had failed to do. 

But after that night, Zalmon didn’t bring Benny, 
and the hardness came back into Bessie’s eyes. She 
went about, white-faced and scared, as if she had 
been caught in a trap and couldn’t get out. At night 
she twisted about on the mattress, unable to let go 
her pain. Even in her sleep, she moaned like an 
animal hurt to death. ; 


108 BREAD GIVERS 


The while Father went around boasting to the 
neighbours that he was going to marry away his 
oldest daughter to Zalmon, who had already a bank 
book with thousands to his name. ‘There was much 
coming and going in our house. One after another 
came to wish Bessie good luck. No one seemed to 
notice her white face but me. 

The wedding day was coming on, nearer and 
nearer. It was after supper. Father had gone to 
the lodge and Mother to the market. Bessie looked 
at me for some minutes with her stone face that hurt 
worse than pain. 

“Come walking with me,” she said. “I can’t stand 
it in this house. Soon the neighbours will be coming 
to wish me more joy and good luck. . . . Oh, 
God!’ She covered her face with her hands. But 
she could not cry. She only shuddered in horror of 
her black wedding day. 

In the street she began to talk. Her words clicked 
hard and cold and sure. “I'll not marry him. 
Never! I wanted to throw myself from the roof, 
or dash myself under a car. But I haven’t it in me 
to kill myself. I’m going to run away to another 
city.” 

We hurried on, not seeing, not hearing anything 
around us. All at once Bessie jerked my hand. 
“See!” she said. “‘That’s what I’m running from.” 
And she pointed to the fish-peddler’s house on the 
opposite side. Then she fled from the place as if it 
was a ghost. 


THE BURDEN BEARER 109 


' “Hello!” Zalmon’s boy, Dave, nudged my arm. 
“Where are you rushing so fast?” 

““How’s everybody?’ I answered. 

Bessie pulled me to come faster, but we heard Dave 
call out, “Benny is awful sick.” 

My sister stopped, turned around and looked at 
Dave. Then she walked right back to him. “‘What’s 
the matter with Benny?” she asked, in a low voice. 

*‘He’s awful sick here.’”’ Dave put both his hands 
on his stomach. “Before, he yelled so, but now he’s 
so white and still.” 

Bessie stood very still, staring at Dave. ‘“‘Who’s 
taking care of the child?”’ she asked. 

“Yenteh. But she got so scared maybe the kid 
was dying, she ran out looking for Father. And I 
ran out to see what’s keeping her so long.” 

*““Come,” was all that Bessie said. Right back to 
Zalmon’s home she went. Without knocking, she 
opened the door and walked in. 

The child was alone in the room, lying on a 
tumbled bed of rags. 

“Poor little heart! Motherless lamb!’ Bessie 
sobbed, rushing over to him. He lay back so weak, 
his big, old eyes staring at the ceiling.. Suddenly, 
he screamed, clenched his little hands, and drew up 
his knees in pain. ‘Then he straightened and lay 
stiff and still, like one dead. 

Bessie put her hand on his face. ‘‘He’s burning 
with fever. Quick, run for the doctor,” she cried. 

When I got back with the doctor, Bessie had. 


110 BREAD GIVERS 


straightened the bed and was bathing Benny’s head 
with her handkerchief. She had taken off his dirty 
little things and covered him over with her own 
petticoat, with the crochet trimming. 

Bessie and the doctor were still working over the 
child when Zalmon came in. At sight of her in his 
house, he jumped with gladness. “You golden 
heart! You’re sent from Heaven to my sick child,” 
he cried, grabbing her arm. 

Bessie shuddered from his touch as if a snake had 
bitten her. But when she bent over Benny, to make 
him take the medicine, she was all tenderness again. 

“‘Mother—are you my mother?” whispered Benny, 
putting his arms around her, and in his weakness 
trying to hug her. 

“Your child has been eating food that poisoned 
him.” And the doctor pointed to an opened can of 
beans on the table. 

“They won’t have to live on canned eating any 
more,” said Zalmon, winking at the doctor and 
snuffing tobacco up his nose. “She’s coming to 
cook for me and take care of my house.” 

The doctor didn’t speak. He only looked at Bessie, 
and there was understanding on his quiet face. 

From that evening on, a change came over Bessie. 
She never could warm up to the fish-peddler. But 
she stopped fighting Father in his plans for the 
marriage. When the wedding day came, she went 
quietly from our house to Zalmon’s—the burden 
bearer had changed her burden. 


CHAPTER VII 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN IN AMERICA 


N AMERICA, a man can get rich quick if he only 

] has a head for business,” said Father, as he 

counted out the five hundred dollars that Zalman 
the fish-peddler had given him. 

** A head for business in America,’’ Mother laughed 
into Father’s face, “is the same head you got to have 
for business in Russia. You showed me enough al- 
ready how smart you are. Why not better earn a 
living by what you know, get a job as a Rabbi in a 
synagogue? Religion is your business.” 

“What! Sell my religion for money? Become a 
false prophet to the Americanized Jews! No. My 
religion is not for sale. I only want to go into busi- 
ness so as to keep sacred my religion. J] want to get 
into some quick money-making thing that will not 
take up too many hours a day, so I could get most of 
my time for learning.” And rolling up the bills, he 
pushed them into his pocket. 

“The while put the money in the bank,” Mother 
begged. 

“I got to have the cash ready in case I see some 
good bargain to buy quick.” And out he went. 

1s 


112 BREAD GIVERS 


An hour later, Father came back, waving a fresh 
printed copy of the Ghetto News. 

“‘Here’s the bargain I’ve been looking for.” And 
he read: 


*A BARGAIN FOR CASH. Leaving for Europe to-morrow, 
must have cash to-day. Will sell my long established grocery, 
in Elizabeth, New Jersey, worth four thousand, for four hundred 
dollars. Only the man with ready cash need come.” 


Father squared his shoulders and grew tall with 
joy. “I’m off to seize my luck by the horns.” 

He slapped the bulging roll of bills and laughed to 
himself, his chin in the air. ‘‘In America, there is no 
need to be poor, if you only got brains and money to 
begin something.” 

He held up the sheet to see again the address. “In 
America the bargains are so thick the newspapers are 
all full of them. Other people have made fortunes 
in America. Why shouldn’t I? It’s only fools who 
remain poor. I’ll go at once and see the place.” 

But Mother dragged him back. “Let me only go 
along. ‘Two heads are better than one.” 

““But, woman, I must first find out what there is to 
buy.” 

Mother clutched at both his hands. “In God’s 
name, let me only hold the money. In my stocking 
it 1s safer than in your pocket.” 

He pushed her back and started for the door. 
““Yideneh! Does a man of brains need a woman’s 
stocking to hold his money for him?” 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 113 


“Promise me only,” wailed Mother, running after 
him, down the stairs. ‘‘Promise me that you won’t 
pay out the money till I come to see what you buy.” 

“Sure,” he called back, over the banisters, “‘if 
it’s only the bargain it says, Ill send quick for you,”’ 
and hurried on, his face shining, his head in the air, 
as though Rockefeller’s millions were already burn- 
ing in his pockets. 

We just sat down to eat our supper when the boy 
from the drugstore came. 

“Mrs. Smolinsky,” he said, “your husband 
*phoned you should come to this address.”’ And he 
handed us a paper containing the street number and 
how to get there. 

We were too excited to eat another bite. We left 
the food standing on the table, hurriedly dressed 
ourselves, and went to Elizabeth. 

It was eight o’clock when we got there. ‘The store 
was lighted in great style. The outside of the 
windows were full of sales signs and the place 
hummed with business. Customers were going in 
and customers were going out, loaded with groceries. 
Father stood near the cash box, rubbing his hands 
with joy, as the owner took in the money for the 
sales. 

_After a while, Father introduced us to the owner 
of the store. The man bowed quickly and went on 
waiting on customers. 

“Two hands are not enough,” he said. “I could 
use two more clerks.” 


114 BREAD GIVERS 


“Well, P’ll have my wife and girl to help me,” 
answered Father. | 

Mother kept gazing around the store, drinking in 
the full-packed shelves of cereals, canned goods, 
soap, and washing powder. ‘The place seemed full to 
overflowing with goods. } 

““Does he really ask only four hundred dollars for 
all this?’ Mother whispered to Father. “‘Ask him 
to give you a pencil and paper so I can begin to count 
up all the goods there is in stock.” 

*““Can’t you see he’s too busy with the customers to 
stop for such things now? Wait till after closing 
time.” 

“Such a smart business man he looks,’ Mother 
went on. “And the store hums with trade. Why. 
does he let go such a good thing?” 

“‘He wants to go back to the old country, to see his 
relations and show off to the neighbours how much 
money he made in America,” answered Father. 

The customers kept coming and coming, pushing 
and elbowing each other to be waited upon first. 
But at nine o’clock by the watch, the man refused to 
sell any more. 

““Come again to-morrow,” he told them, as he 
pushed them out and locked the door. Then he 
went back to the cash box to count the money. 

“Seventy-eight dollars and eighty-nine cents.” 
The man smilingly put the money in his pocket. 
‘Not so bad for a plain Monday, eh?” 

“Do you still take in more on other days?” began 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 115 


Father. But Mother jerked him by the sleeve, not 
to talk how good the bargain was, for fear we should 
lose it. 

**My man tells me you are giving up the business to 
go to Russia.” 

**That’s it,” the man nodded. 

“Four hundred dollars you want for the store?’ 
questioned Mother. “Nu, let us first count up the 
stock and see what you offer to sell.” 

The man opened his eyes on Mother. ‘‘Sell! 
offer! Ive got nothing to offer. I sold this store to 
your husband, at five o’clock, with the agreement 
that he was to take possession of it at nine.” 

“So,” breathed Mother in astonishment. ‘The 
store is ours already!” ! 

“Tt sure 1s,’ answered the man, as he quickly un- 
locked the door, threw the key to Father, and walked 
out. 

**So you bought the store already without asking 
me,” cried Mother, hitting Father on the head 
playfully. “For once in your life you had more luck 
than brains.” 

“What a wife! Even when I show her I got brains 
she is so jealous she calls it only luck.”’ 

“Nu, my smart man, call it brains. But why 
didn’t you let your own wife have the pleasure of 
buying together our new business? You could have 
waited till I came.” 

“Wait! I wanted to wait, my woman who bosses 
me! [ wanted you to see for yourself with what a 


116 BREAD GIVERS 


quick head I can make a big business deal. But if 
I would have waited, the bargain would have been 
snatched out of my hands. For when I came here, 
there was another man to buy the’store. He was 
here before me and also with cash in his hand.” 

“Then how did you get ahead of him?” 

‘Because the other man was an Italian, and the 
owner sold me the bargain only because I was a 
Jew. Ai 

Father began dancing around the store crazy with 
joy. ‘‘And such a bargain! Look only around this 
full-packed store! Who would not grab such a 
chance, quick? Think only! Seventy-eight dol- 
lars and eighty-nine cents in one day! In one week, 
seven times seventy-eight dollars and eighty-nine 
cents. Shah! We will have to hire a bookkeeper 
to count up for us all our profits in a year.” 

“Gott sei dank! ‘Tears of thankfulness blurred — 
Mother’s eyes. “The sun is beginning to shine for 
us. After all our black years, we lived to see our 
own bought store in America!’ And in her excite- 
ment, she threw her arms around Father’s neck and 
kissed him on both cheeks. 

“Ach! We'll yet be people in this new world!” 
Gladness flowed from Mother to Father like a living 
sun. “‘We’re going to save a penny to a penny and 
a dollar to a dollar, so that, a year from now, we'll 
have the money for our own bought house, with 
steam heat and hot running water and a white 
marble sink.” 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 117 


Higher and higher flew her happiness. ‘And I’m 
going to show you how well I know what beautiful is. 
Pll fix up a parlour with carpet on the floor, and a 
red-velvet set, and lace curtains, tied on the side with 
red-satin ribbon.” 

*But first we must buy a golden wineglass with 
silver candlesticks for the Sabbath.” Father stroked 
Mother’s hair with new tenderness. “‘ Woman who 
bosses me! Don’t you think the first hundred dol- 
lars we ought to take to give away to charity, so as 
to thank God for our good luck?” 

Mother pushed back Father’s hand in playful af- 
fection. 

““ Mehsugener Yid! You with your charities! 
Why can’t you let the money warm itself by us a 
little? How can you ever become a business man, 
in America, if the minute you get a few dollars in one 
hand, you want to give it away with the other to 
charity?” 

As I looked at Father and Mother playing with 
the joy of a business of their own, I thought to my- 
self, “If only there was plenty of money between 
them, how happy they would be together, fighting in 
fun, instead of nagging and galling each other fight- 
ing Over pennies.” 

And I thought to myself, “Now all the food we'll 
need will be right with us in the store and Mother 
wouldn’t have to eat out her heart bargaining at the 
pushcarts and spend hours in the market to save 
a few cents. And she’ll stop her worries, stop her 


118 BREAD GIVERS 


cursing and hollering, and be a mother like other 
mothers.” 7 

I looked about me. Ach! What plenty to eat! 
My mouth began to water at sight of a whole tubful 
of butter, all our own. Butter for bread day and 
night, and the best of eggs from now on. 

“And with seventy-eight dollars and eighty-nine 
cents coming in every day, we'll soon be able to 
buy a piano and Ill begin to take piano lessons. 
And if I were a piano-player instead of a shop hand, 
IT wouldn’t have to marry myself to a common man 
like my sisters. JT’ll try to catch on to a doctor, or a 
lawyer, or maybe an actor on the stage. And if my 
husband were an actor, then I could go to the theatre 
free every night.” | 

Full of my dreams I stepped over to the window. 
There was a great pile of oatmeal boxes that had 
been stacked up to make a fancy pyramid. But the 
man selling them off had broken into it and spoiled 
the even lines on both sides. So I started to fix it 
up again in proper shape. But reaching over, some 
way, I knocked the whole pile down and it tumbled 
to the floor and the boxes went rolling everywhere. 
_ “Crazy, what have you done!’ cried my mother, 
and both she and Father bent down to pick them up. 

Mother and Father raised themselves up with 
boxes in each hand. On Mother’s face came an 
expression as if she held something bewitched. 
Slowly she lifted the boxes up and down. ‘Then she 
turned on Father. 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 11g 


“Business man, what are you holding in your 
hands?” 

Father stared puzzled at the boxes, as if to read the 
label. 

- “Tt says it’s oatmeal, but it must be marked 
wrong. Maybe it’s that feathery puffed rice.” 

Mother shook her box close to her ear. 

“Business man! What have you? You got air 
in your hand,” and she tore open the box and held 
emptiness before Father’s eyes. 

“How could they be empty?” said he, puzzled. 
**Didn’t I see him selling them?” 

‘Fool!’ Mother turned upon him. ‘“‘Couldn’t 
he have had full ones on the top of the pile to sell 
from?” And she kicked the boxes on the floor till 
- she found one with something in it. ‘“‘See,” here is 
one more he could have sold. One more has oat- 
meal in it.” 

Father began to try each empty box, in the hope of 
finding another one with something in it. 

“Blind yok!” shrieked Mother. “Stop playing with 
air. Let’s at least see what a great bargain you 
grabbed.” And she and I began tearing around the 
store to examine the stock, while Father stared 
blankly at us. 

The shelves had goods only in the front row. The 
whole space behind was empty. Mother stabbed a 
knife into the tub of butter and hit into hard wood 
beneath the thin spread which had been plastered 
against the fake wooden bottom. | 


120 BREAD GIVERS 


I picked up the top layer of a newly opened case 
of eggs and found only empty paper fillers beneath. 

Beside the almost empty barrel of sugar stood 
another sugar barrel, not yet opened. 

““What’s this?” asked Mother. 

“Tt’s sugar.’ Father came forward hopefully. 
“I pushed it myself to see it was full.” 

Full of what?” Mother glared at him. 

I knocked it open with a hatchet. A barrel full 
of sawdust stared up at us. I dug into the barrel 
and pulled out a brick. 

Half the night we worked to see the extent of the 
great business deal that Father snatched with such 
mad haste. Not only were the shelves faked with 
emptiness, the windows full of dummies, but worse 
yet! We began to read the signs on the windows 
that shouted aloud the bargains in the store, in red 
and black letters. But only now, we had sense 
enough to put two and two together, and saw that 
oatmeal was marked two boxes for fifteen cents when 
one alone cost ten cents. Ketchup, seven cents, 
when it should sell for fifteen cents. Eggs that even 
on the pushcart sold for thirty cents were, in that 
grand bargain- window, marked a quarter. 

“No wonder the customers pushed on each other - 
rushing to buy in this store,’’ Mother wailed. “‘What 
women would not kill each other crowding to a store 
where they could get ketchup for seven cents when 
it cost fifteen cents? The wonder by me is that my 
smart husband didn’t give that swindler the chance 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 121 


to take in the cash for another day when he could 
have sold the empty boxes full of air for oatmeal, and 
the barrels full of sawdust for sugar.” 

**And such a born gentleman he looked! And so 
smart he talked!’ Father stared with his innocent 
eyes into space. 

““A gentleman!” shrieked Mother. ‘A: crook, a 
thief, a rattlesnake! Why are we standing around 
here like fools? Aren’t there policemen, judges, 
courts of justice in America? We'll arrest the 
robber. Where does he live? What’s his name?” 

“Name? Live?” Father opened his innocent 
wide eyes like a child. “I paid him cash, because he 
said he had to go right away to Russia.”’ 

** Justice in America!’ sighed Mother. ‘There is 
justice nowhere for a fool. A fool they whip even 
in the Holy Temple.”’ 

We did not go home, but slept that night in the 
room in back of the store. In the morning we took 
out the signs that were marked down below cost. 
Father stood himself at the empty cash box ready to 
ring up the cash and Mother and I stood ready to 
wait on customers. At last a customer came! A 
woman for a bag of salt! And then came a little girl 
for a box of crackers. But she didn’t buy them, for 
her mother had given her only four cents, and we 
had marked the crackers back to five cents. 

About nine o’clock, a young man walked in and 
looked about with a funny smile on his face. 

“Good morning, mister! I’m glad you came,” 


122 BREAD GIVERS 


said Father, extending a friendly hand to the visitor. 
“I had news and maybe Pil have to go soon to my 
daughter in California.” 

“Well,” replied the man, “there’s not much to 
keep you here.” 

“Of course I could leave my wife and daughter in 
the store. But you know women have long hair and 
small brains. It needs a man’s head to run a busi- 
ness. IfI had a good customer, J think Id rather sell 
my store. So if you're still looking to buy it 

“Me?” The man pointed to himself. “Me buy 
this store? What kind of a sucker do you think I 
am?” 

“But only yesterday you had the cash in your 
hand and you were so anxious to buy, only that man 
didn’t want to sell to an Italian. I’m not so narrow- 
minded. Ill sell to any gentleman with cash.” 

“You won’t sell it to me, Uncle Aby.” The man 
laughed into Father’s face. “The roll of one-dollar 
bills that I had yesterday with a fifty on the outside 
belonged to my late employer—the gentleman who 
sold you this store. I offered to buy it and displayed 
this roll six times yesterday, before you came. But 
you were the man we had been waiting for all day. 
I wouldn’t be telling you all this, but the dirty skunk 
double-crossed me and beat it last night without 
giving me my share.” 

“Oi wehl’’? Mother dug her hands in her hair 
wildly. ‘“‘We’re robbed! Swindled! Our blood, 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 123 


our life, all our money gone!” And then at sight of 
the man puffing his cigarette so calmly, she rushed at 
him: 

“Quick! Sara! Run for a policeman to arrest. 
this crook.”’ 

I started for the door, but the young man pushed 
by me, bowing politely. ‘Don’t bother, little girl. 
I wouldn’t have come here if the cops could have 
anything on me. I[ was only a clerk and I had to do 
what the boss told me.” 

He tipped his hat and walked away like he owned 
the earth. 

We stood staring after him, dumb with helpless-' 
ness. With drawn face Mother turned back to the 
store where Father sat with his hands folded, a look 
of childlike bewilderment in his wide, innocent eyes. 

“Woe is me! Bitter is me! We're ruined!’ 
Mother shook her fist in Father’s face. ‘‘Gazlin! 
That’s what you get for not listening to me. If you 
had only let me go along as I begged myself by you, 
you would not be mooning now over a cash box as 
empty of cash as that sawdust barrel was empty of 
sugar.” 

“We live to learn,” said Father, hopefully. “Next 
time I’ll know better.”’ 

“But you never learn better. You only learn to 
be a worse fool.” 

“How could I dream that the man was such a 
crook? He made me feel such faith in him, I was 


124 BREAD GIVERS 


ready to give him not only the $400, I would have 
given him $4,000 if only I had it. I \would have 
given him my whole life.” 

‘Why do you never trust your own wife? Why do 
you only trust strange people?” 

“You think I’m like you, mistrusting everybody? 
I trust people. The whole world is built on trust. 
The bank, the mines, the Government could never 
exist unless people trusted each other.”’ 

““Oh-h-h-h! Of all the troubles on earth, is there 
anything so terrible as to have to live with a fool?” 

For a moment Father dropped his head, almost 
touched by Mother’s cries. Then he pushed up his 
shoulders and shook off his sadness. 

‘““There’s nothing so bad that maybe it couldn’t 
yet be worse. Maybe instead of losing the money I 
could yet have broken my leg or got myself killed. 
Maybe God let me off with the mere loss of money to 
spare me a worse misfortune. . . . Woman! 
If only you had a little understanding of life, you 
would thank God for His mercy on us nf 

“Listen to him only!’ Mother’s cries shook 
through the house. “All our money gone. Starva- 
tion stares us in the face. And yet he wants me to 
thank God for His mercy on us.” 

In her excited anger, she grabbed Father by the 
front of his coat, trying to shake him out of his calm- 
ness. “‘Gazlin! Now that the girls are married 
and no wages coming in, what shall we live on?” 

_ But Father, calmer than ever, gently loosened 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 125 
Mother’s hands. ‘‘The God that feeds the worms 


under the stone, and the fishes in the sea, will He not 
feed us? Always you tried to frighten me with your 
hollering ‘Wolf? but the wolf never came. Some-- 
times we had a little less to eat, sometimes a little 
more. But we haven’t starved yet. The wheel of 
life is always turning. What is down to-day will 
turn up to-morrow.” 

Mother rocked, her head in her hands. ‘“‘How can 
the lost four hundred dollars ever turn up again? A 
fool throws a stone in the water and ten smart 
men can’t fish it out. To whom will you now turn 
for help?” 

Father’s face became alive with light. He towered 
over Mother like an ancient prophet that had just 
stepped out of the Bible. ‘“‘Have you forgotten the 
undying words of our race: “The Lord is my shep- 
herd, No want shall I know’? . . . When all 
other human help is gone, then God Himself steps 
out of His High Heaven, to help us. ‘This man who 
robbed me only ‘pushed me closer into the arms of 
God. Now I know that everything that happens to 
us is from God, for our good.” 

“And that is why I’m so deeply buried in the 
ground by you,’ wailed Mother, “because you turn 
all your worries on to God.” 

Mother began hitting her head against the wall 
and crying, “‘I can’t stand it from him any more. I 
can’t. I can’t.” And Father rushed over to her 
and tried to quiet her. 


126 BREAD GIVERS 


“Foolish yideneh! Why are you getting yourself 
so excited over nothing? What’s loss of money any- 
way? You know the old saying, “Money lost, 
nothing lost. Hope lost, all is lost.’ The less 
money I have, the more I live on hope. And hope 
is the only reality here on earth. It’s hope that 
makes people build cities and span bridges and send 
ships from one end of the earth to another. Even 
dying, man plants his hope on the next world.” 

“My gall is bursting! My flesh is falling from me 
in pieces, listening to him! A man lets himself be 
swindled of his last penny and he throws yet salt on 
his own wounds, talking on hope.” 

“Nag! Noodnik!” Father turned upon Mother. 
“Stop making me miserable. You were always 
looking for worries, so now you got something te 
worry about. God sends always to the spinner his 
flax, and to the drinker his wine, and to the woman 
who is looking for worries something to worry about.” 

*““Gevalt! To whom can I go with my bitter heart? 
Tm living with a madman that ought to be tied up 
with ropes 3 

“Stop your yelling!’ commanded Father. “Jshah 
Rah! Worry yourself in your own head. Don’t 
holler on me. I know the money is lost. Do I need 
yet a steam whistle to shout this to me? Suppose 
Rockefeller or Morgan would stop to worry every 
time they made a little mistake in business? Big 
men grow wise through their mistakes. It’s only 
women who have nothing to think about who waste 


€ 


FATHER BECOMES A BUSINESS MAN 127 


themselves tearing their hair over little losses that 
are past and done with. If you don’t stop this 
nagging this very minute, [’ll leave this house and 
never come back again.” 

““Go—go!” shrieked Mother. ‘‘Never come back 
to darken my days. At least a few years before my 
end I want to be free from you. If I were only a 
widow, people would pity themselves on me. But 
with you around, they think I got a bread giver when 
what I have is a stone giver. Go—go from me— 
blind lunatic—you haven’t sense enough to tie a 
cat’s tail.” 

But Father made no move to go. _ Instead, they 
went right on arguing and shouting at each other. 
And even long after Father was asleep, Mother kept 
on wringing her hands and going over and over our 
terrible loss. 


CHAPTER VIIL 


THE HARD HEART 


OW could we help ourselves? All we had 

H was sunk in this empty fake of a store. | 

Still it was a place to start with something. 
And so we moved to a lonesome street, at the edge of 
‘a dead town, and lived out there, at the back of the 
store. Hoping with nothing to hope with, our 
fainting hearts still prayed for a miracle to happen 
and save us. 

While I was busy fixing the place, Mother was out 
bargaining with the wholesalers to trust her with 
enough goods to restock the store. Always she 
managed to push by the little people and get herself 
into the private office of the big man at the head of 
the business. Catching hold of the man’s hands, inthe 
fire of her great need, she clung to him till he heard 
out all her troubles of an empty store. And so she 
burned into a man’s eyes her pleading to be trusted, 
that one after another gave her goods on time. 

After a while, it seemed that Father and Mother 
could make a go of the store. But how could I stand 
the empty deadness of the place? 

Ach! The loneliness of that little town! And 
the cold, stiff people there. It was like living among 

128 


THE HARD HEART 129 


walking chunks of ice. The each-for-himself look 
froze me to the bone. 

Hours passed before a customer would step in for 
a bar of soap or a loaf of bread. As I listened to the 
ticking of the clock, each minute of each hour seemed 
like the ashes of a thousand years slowly smothering 
me. 

I wanted back the mornings going to work. And 
the evenings from work. ‘The crowds sweeping you 
on, like waves of a beating sea. The shop. The 
roar of the rushing machines. The drive and the 
thrill of doing things faster and faster. The pay 
envelope. The joyous feel of money where every 
little penny was earned with your own hands. 

What would become of me if I remained out here, 
day in and day out, without friends. My arms 
would wither at my sides. I’d forget how to shake 
hands. My tongue would grow dumb in my mouth. 
And all my longing for people would shrink in my 
frozen heart. 

Mother had just come back from New York, 
loaded with packages. ‘Till the goods would be sent, 
she had grabbed from the wholesalers a few samples 
of everything she could possibly carry. She tossed 
the things on the counter and dropped into a chair . 
by the window. She lay back, closed her eyes, and 
a grateful, rested look came into her face. “God 
should only be merciful and help us work up the 
store,” she gasped, mopping her face with a corner of 
her shawl. “After all, it’s the first time since we 


130 BREAD GIVERS 


came to America that we have a little light and air. 
When I look out of the window, it’s not into a black 
airshaft. I see a tree, the sky, green grass.” 

‘“‘There’s a lot of grass in the cemetery, too,” I 
cried. 

But Mother was so drunk with the green grass and 
the blue sky, she was deaf and blind to my bitterness. 

“Once we only get the goods we need, people will 
come running to us, as to a bargain counter,” she 
said, softly, as if she were floating on air. 

‘Nu, so Father will have more money to pay to his 
lodges and to send to the starving Russians, while 
we'll be slaving away for him.” 

“Shah! Shah! Mother shook her head at me. 

“How could you have married such a crazy luna- 
tic as Father?” I burst out. 

“A daughter to talk that way of her own father?” 
She stared in horror at me. “Even if he was a 
drunkard and a card-player, you owe him respect.” 

‘I can’t respect a man who lives on the blood of 
his wife and children. If you had any sense, you’d 
arrest him for not supporting you.” 

‘Arrest a man who is the light of the world? A 
man innocent as a child and harmless as an angel?” 

Our arguing was cut short, as a customer came in. 
He was a wooden-faced American farmer, with sun- 
burn on his cheeks and neck, and the smell of the 
barn on him. We leaped forward in one breath, 
and asked what he wanted. 

‘“‘A pound of coffee,” he ordered. 


THE HARD HEART 131 


Then he asked for a loaf of bread. And we put it 
beside his coffee. 

“A bag of sugar.” 

A worried fear came into Mother’s face. ‘Oh, 
sugar?’ shehesitated. “We're out of sugar just now. 
It hasn’t been sent yet.” 

** All right,” said the man, grouchily. ‘“‘Give mea 
gallon of syrup.” 

How could we tell the man that we hadn’t such 
things in stock? We stared at him like guilty 
criminals. At last I found my voice and said, fear- 
fully, ‘‘We’re out of syrup, too.”’ 

With a black frown, he pushed back the packages. 
“T have to get everything in one place,” he growled. 

All the air of hope went out of our hearts as the 
inan turned and walked away. We just wilted into 
silence, unable to meet one another’s eyes. 

After a while, another man entered. Again hope 
yose in us. But he was only a passer-by who came 
for a match to light his pipe. | 

Mother busied herself dusting the poor little stock, 
set in front of the empty shelves, while I yawned 
and waited in maddening idleness. Then a little 
boy trailed in and asked for a penny lollipop. 

“Mother will pay you after,” he said, shoving the 
candy into his mouth. So dulled with discourage- 
ment was I, that I even forgot to ask him who his 
mother was till he was out of the store. And when I 
ran after him, he pointed to a woman coming toward 
ws with a basket. 


132 BREAD GIVERS 


I smiled my best welcome to the new customer. 
But she pushed by me stiffly and, with a scolding 
face, threw on the counter a package.of oatmeal that 
was mouldy, and ketchup and canned milk that had 
gone bad. 

“IT got them at your cheating bargain sale,” she 
cried. ‘‘Give me my money back or new goods.” 

The store had not been ours when she had bought 
her things. But we got so scared at the woman’s 
railing, fearing she would drive away other customers, 
Mother gave her fresh goods. 

It was lucky that the woman got out just before 
Father camein. Shining with godliness from his day 
of prayer, he went straight to the cash box to count 
out the money we had taken in. Carefully he folded 
every paper dollar and put it in his pocket, leaving 
only the pennies and nickels for change. 

I wondered had Mother seen, but she went on 
busily, filling small paper bags with salt. ‘Turning 
to Father, she asked him to weigh them out. 

As he lifted with his butter fingers the first bag, to 
put it on the scale, the paper burst and the salt 
spilled to the floor. 

“Ach!” He kicked the salt with his foot. “The 
grocery business is only for thicknecks and truck- 
drivers. Such long hours of brainless drudgery 1s 
only for grubby grinds who have no high thoughts to 
think out.” 

He looked far out into space, and almost a sadness 
came into his eyes. ‘“‘I’m sorry I didn’t go into the 


THE HARD HEART 133 


banking business,” he sighed. ‘“‘A banker works 
only from ten to three. The rest of the time I’d 
have for thinking out the thoughts in my head.” 

Lunatic!’ shrieked Mother. ‘You, without a 
shekel to your name! Why do you only want to be 
a banker? Wouldn’t it be better if you tried to 
make yourself for the President of America?” 

“Woman! How do you suppose Rockefeller, or 
Morgan, or any of those millionaires made their 
startin America? ‘They all began with empty hands. 
Their only capital was hope, courage to work out 
their ideas. I got a million burning ideas flying 
through my head. But I’m cursed with a wife who 
hangs like a stone on my neck—a nag, a noodnik 
that blots out my sunshine.”’ 

But Father’s face brightened as a customer en- 
tered, a young, college-looking fellow. Father pushed 
Mother and me aside and came forward to the man. 
He liked to show us how to wait on customers. ” 

“A box of bran, please,’ said the man. 

“Bran? For what do you need such a thing?” 
asked Father, bossily. ! 

*“ Breakfast-food bran,’ the man answered, coldly. 

“Bran for breakfast? Such things you only hear 
in this crazy America.”’ Father began to preach his 
smartness into the man’s neck. “By us home, in 
Shnipishock, they gave bran to horses and cattle. 
But Americans are such fools, they make eating out 
of it. ‘This is a sensible store. We don’t keep such 
nonsense.” i 


134 BREAD GIVERS 


Mother stood there, holding her breath, her eyes 
jumping out of her head toward Father. Then, 
turning quickly, she rushed forward with a package 
of bran. But the insulted man had already gone. 

Mother shook the bran in Father’s face. “Woe is 
me! My eyes dry out of my head till I see a cus- 
tomer come, and you drive them away like a mad- 
man.” 

“You want to teach me how to talk to people? 
Woman! Stayin your place. You’re smart enough 
to bargain with the fish-peddler. But I’m the head 
of this business.”” With his big finger, he pointed to 
the kitchen. “Go back to your cook-stove. [ll 
run this store.” 

While Father was preaching Mother back into her 
place, a girl came in for a pound of rice. When she 
went to pay, she had only ten cents. 

“The rice is twelve cents,” I told her. 

“Can I have it now? I just live next door and I'll 
bring back the two cents later.” . 

I handed Father the ten cents, saying it was for a 
pound of rice. 

“Crazy! Where was your head? Don’t you 
know yet, rice is twelve cents?”’ 

“T trusted her the two cents 

‘Without asking me? I’m the one to decide who 
is to be trusted.” 

“But you’re never here. You’re away praying 
most of the time.” | 


eB | 


THE HARD HEART 135 


“Hold your mouth! You’re talking too much.” 

*“Why do you make such a holler on me over two 
cents, when you, yourself, gave away four hundred 
dollars to a crook for empty shelves?”’ 

*Blood-and-iron! How dare you question your 
father his business? What’s the world coming to in 
this wild America? No respect for fathers. No 
fear of God.”’ His eyes flamed as he shook his fist at 
me. “Only dare open your mouth to me again! 
Here I struggle to work up a business and she gives 
away all the profits of my goods. No heart. No 
conscience. [wo cents here and two cents there. 
That’s how all my hard-earned dollars bleed away.” 

Oh, God! Twocents! My gallburstinme! For 
seventeen years I had stood his preaching and his 
bullying. But now all the hammering hell that I had 
to listen to since | was born cracked my brain. 
His heartlessness to Mother, his pitiless driving away 
Bessie’s only chance to love, bargaining away Fania 
to a gambler and Mashah to a diamond-faker—when 
they each had the luck to win lovers of their own— 
all these tyrannies crashed over me. Should I let 
him crush me as he crushed them? No. ‘This is 
America, where children are people. 

*“T can’t stand it! I[ can’t!” I cried, rushing to 
the back of the store. ‘“‘Two cents! ‘Two cents! 
All that cursing and thundering over two cents!”’ 

Blindly, I grabbed my things together into a bun- 
dle. I didn’t care where I was going or what would 


136 BREAD GIVERS 


become of me. Only to break away from my black 
life. Only not to hear Father’s preaching voice 
again. 

As I put on my hat and coat, I saw Mother, 
clutching at her heart in helplessness, her sorrowful 
eyes gazing at me. All the suffering of her years was 
in the dumb look she turned on me. Bending over, 
she took out from her stocking the red handkerchief 
with the knot that held her saved-up rent money. 
And without a word, she pushed it into my hand. 

As I came through the door with my bundle, 
Father caught sight of me. ‘‘What’s this?” he 
asked. ‘‘Where are you going?” 

“I’m going back to work, in New York.” 

“What? Wild-head! Without asking, without 
consulting your father, you get yourself ready to go? 
Do you yet know that I want you to work in New 
York? Let’s first count out your carfare to come 
home every night. Maybe it will cost so much 
there wouldn’t be anything left from your wages.” 

“But I’m not coming home!”’ 

“What? A daughter of mine, only seventeen 
years old, not home at night?”’ 

“Tl go to Bessie or Mashah.” 

*“Mashah is starving poor, and you know how 
crowded it is by Bessie.” 

“Tf there’s no place for me by my sisters, I'll find a 
place by strangers.” 

“A young girl, alone, among strangers? Do you 
know what’s going on in the world? No girl can live 


THE HARD HEART 137 


without a father or a husband to look out for her. 
It says in the Torah, only through a man has a woman 
an existence. Only through a man can a woman 
enter Heaven.” 

“I’m smart enough to look out for myself. It’s a 
new life now. In America, women don’t need men 
to boss them.” 

 Blut-und-Eisen! They ought to put you in a 
madhouse till you’re cured of your crazy nonsense!”’ 

Always before, when Father began the drum, drum 
of his preaching on me, my will was squelched. But 
now he saw the stony hardness of my eyes. And 
suddenly his whole face saddened with the hurt of a 
wounded martyr, suffering for his righteousness. 

“Is this your thanks for all your father did for 
you?” he pleaded, with the gentle patience of a holy 
one. “Where do you find a poor father who has 
done for his children as much as I? I didn’t cripple 
you. I didn’t give youconsumption. I didn’t send 
you to work at the age of six like some poor fathers do. 
You didn’t start work till you were over ten. Now, 
when I begin to have a little use from you, you want 
to run away and live for yourself?” 

“I’ve got to live my own life. It’s enough that 
Mother and the others lived for you.” 

“Chzufeh! You brazen one! The crime of 
crimes against God—daring your will against your 
father’s will. In olden times the whole city would 
have stoned you!” 

“Thank God, I’m not living in olden times. 


138 BREAD GIVERS 


Thank God, I’m living in America! You made the 
lives of the other children! I’m going to make my 
own life!” 

“You hard heart! You soul of stone! You're the 
curse from all my children. They all honoured and 
obeyed their father.” 

“And what’stheirend? Lookatthemnow! You 
think [ll slave for you till my braids grow gray— 
wait till you find me another fish-peddler to sell me 
out in marriage! You think I’m a fool like Bessie! 
No! No!” 

Wild with all that was choked in me since I was 
born, my eyes burned into my father’s eyes. “‘My 
will is as strong as yours. I’m going to live my own 
life. Nobody can stop me. I’m not from the old 
country. I’m American!” 

“You blasphemer!’’ His hand flung out and 
struck my cheek, ‘Denier of God! [Ill teach you 
respect for the law!” 

I leaped back and dashed for the door. The Old 
World had struck its last on me. 


CHAPTER IX 
BREAD GIVERS 


LL the way on the train to New York, Father’s 

A curses stillranginmyears. The flame of his 

eyes scorched their bitter wrath into my eyes. 

The hand with which he struck me still burned on my 
cheek. 

“New York! All out!” The conductor shook 
my arm and shouted in my ears, “All out!”’ 

I stared about. The train was nearly empty. 
Oh, I’m here, already, in New York. . . . Itried 
to pull myself up from my thoughts. 

Bessie! I was going to Bessie. 

It was nine o'clock when I got to Palmers s fish 
store. The shouting and bargaining for the holiday 
fish were enough to burst the ceiling. Zalmon stood 
on one side, surrounded by a crowd of women. 
Bessie on the other side, with another crowd. Sweat 
streamed from Bessie’s and Zalmon’s twisted faces, 
as they fought for their life with the bargaining 
. yentehs. 

“Robber!” cried an old, wrinkled woman with a 
shawl over her head. ‘“‘Ten cents you ask for carp! 
By Cohen’s it’s only nine cents.” 

“Not such goods like by me.” Zalmon lifted a 

139 


140 BREAD GIVERS 


fish in his black, hairy hand, and waved it before the 
woman’s eyes. ‘Give a look only on my beautiful 
carp! It jumps with life yet.” 

“But, swindler! My husband sweats blood for 
every penny. Why do you squeeze from me the last 
cent?” 

“You think I steal my goods? And I got to pay 
rent.” 

*‘Nu, have a little mercy in your heart.” The 
woman clutched at his arm wildly. “Twenty-eight 
cents for three pounds?”’ 

“Twenty-nine cents and not a penny less.” He 
put the fish on the scale and quickly tried to throw 
it into the woman’s basket. 

“Thief!” she shrieked. ‘‘You’re skinning me in 
the weight.” 

** Kooshenierkeh ! Out from here. Worms should 
eat you.” And he turned from her to another cus- 
tomer. 

I elbowed my way to where Bessie was. Her thin 
arms were covered with the gummy scales of the 
fish. Her face, her hair, and her apron were thick 
with it. So buried to the neck in fish was she, that 
she couldn’t hear me or see me. 

“Only another little fish yet for good measure,” 
pleaded a woman, snatching up a squashed flounder. 
‘*T have eleven hungry mouths to feed.” 

“It’s already over the weight,” cried Bessie, tear- 
ing the fish out of the woman’s hand. ‘Go to the 
charities, if you want fish for nothing.” 


BREAD GIVERS 14I 


The woman moved away, muttering curses. 
There was such famine-squeezed emptiness 1n her 
eyes that it hurt to look at her. I could stand the 
bargaining no longer and walked to the back of the 
store. But even in the far room, I could hear the 
haggling and the cursing, the tearing at each other’s 
throats for pennies. 

I looked about me, at the grand, married life that 
Father had grabbed for Bessie. Five boys sleeping 
on one mattress on the floor. Yenteh, on a narrow 
lounge. That place in the corner, with the ragged 
green curtains, Zalmon’s and Bessie’s bedroom. No 
place for me here, but I was so tired, my eyes could 
hold open no longer. Leaning my head over my 
hands on the table, I fell asleep. 


““What’s this? What brought you here?” I 
opened my eyes and saw Zalmon and Bessie standing 
over me. 

“*T left home,” I blurted out, now wide awake. 

“What?” Zalmon yawned into my face. “You'd 
better go right straight back, then. A girl’s place is 
under her father’s hand.” 

“Shah!” Bessie put herself between him and me. 
“It’s too late to go back to-night.” 

Then right back in the morning. A nice example 
you'd be for my daughter,’ and he stumbled away 
to the bedroom. 

Bessie put her hand over my shoulder. ‘Go to 
sleep with Yenteh and to-morrow we'll talk.” Her 


142 BREAD GIVERS 


head dropped to the side and her body seemed to 
double over, as she dragged herself to bed. 

I looked at the fat Yenteh on the narrowlounge. I 
could see no room for me. But L was sothin. And 
so I crawled up to the edge and slowly worked a 
place for my feet to rest. But I scarcely had fallen 
asleep when I was dumped to the floor as Yenteh 
turned over with a sleepy grunt. There was no use 
to try the lounge again. I sat down wearily on a 
chair. 

Bessie tiptoed over to me. With her finger on her 
lips she motioned for me to follow. Out of doors, we 
sat down on the step. 

“What happened?” she whispered, slipping her 
hand into mine. 

“Father. I couldn’t stand him any longer.” 

“Thank God you had the courage to break away. 
If ?'d had your sense, I wouldn’t have sunk into 
Zalmon’s fishwife.” 

“But where could I find a place to live? I’m so 
burning to get on my own feet!” 

Bessie dropped her face in her hands. “Ach! I 
haven’t even a little corner for my own sister,” she 
groaned. ‘‘But Mashah has no fish store. She has 
no stepchildren. Among your own you can always 
squeeze yourself together.” 

“Don’t worry for me. I’m free from Father’s 
preaching. The rest will go like flying.” 

We fell into a silence. The air was full of voices. 
Great hopes beat in my heart like wings of flying 


BREAD GIVERS 143 


things. But Bessie’s sadness stopped the joy in me. 

**Many times [ wanted to run like you,” she sighed. 
**But there’s Benny.” 

So much I had to say to Bessie, but soon her head 
began to nod and we wentin. Zalmon was snoring so 
sound that we quietly stole a blanket from his bed, 
and Bessie and | slept together on the kitchen floor. 

The moment it was light a worse yelling than that 
of the yentehs grabbing for the fish broke loose in that 
house. Five boys fighting each other, all trying to 
wash at the sink at one time, roused me from my 
dead sleep. 

“You little mut! Give me that soap!” shouted 
Sol. 

“It’s mine. I had it first.” 

Sol snatched the soap out of Benny’s hand, giving 
him such a push with his elbow that he went sprawl- 
ing on the floor. At this, big Dave kicked them out 
of his way, and spread himself before the whole sink. 
He began splashing water on his face, humming a 
song from the street. 

Bessie put her hand to her ears, adding her shriek 
to the noise. ‘O01, 01,01! Every morning I’m yell- 
ing at them ‘Wash yourself two at a time.’ But 
they all rush together like wild animals. In our house 
we also had only one sink, but we didn’t kill each 
other to be first.” 

Zalmon ranin. “Devils! Stop this, or I'll break 
the bones in your bodies and kick you out in the 
street.” 


144 BREAD GIVERS 


He sat down and his angry eyes bulged at me. 
“Right after breakfast, home you go.” 

“‘T’m not-.going home,” | said, without looking up. 

**But you'll not stay here.’’ He pointed to Yenteh, 
tying a red ribbon on her hair. ‘I got enough 
trouble on my hands with my own girl going wild! 
I don’t want another Americanerin in my house.” 

“Drink your coffee,” Bessie urged, her eyes going 
out with her heart to me. But my throat closed up. 
I couldn’t swallow another drop of Zalmon’s food. 

Oh, how glad I was to get out of that house! 
Mashah’s clean little home flashed before me as I 
hurried away. ‘There, there would be no fighting, 
no yelling, no Zalmon and no fish smells. Only 
Mashah’s own little children, Danny, Ruthy, and the 
baby, to light up and make more beautiful the 
beautiful place. I pushed on through the crowd, so 
anxious to get to Mashah that I saw nothing until 
someone stepped in front of me. 

“Nu, little sister! What a grand young lady 
you're getting to be!” And there was Moe Mirsky, 
Mashah’s husband, in a new checked suit, with a 
carefully folded, blue-bordered handkerchief sticking 
out of his breast pocket. His freshly ironed trousers 
were turned up at the bottom, showing his silk socks 
and new patent-leather shoes. Such a grand gentle- 
man! 

““Y’m going to Mashah,” I said, hurrying on. 

At Mashah’s open door stood a milkman arguing 
with her. 


BREAD GIVERS 145 


“You didn’t pay last week’s bill, and if you can’t 
pay now, we'll have to stop the milk.”’ 

He lifted his rack of bottles and turned to go, but 
Mashah grasped his arm imploringly. “I’ve got to 
have milk for my babies.”’ 

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I got babies of my own. 
If I don’t turn in this collection, [’ll lose my job.” 

“T’ll surely pay you next week.” 

*You said that twice before. What’s the matter? 
Ain’t your husband working?”’ 

Mashah’s pale face turned red with guilt. Dumb 
with the shame of her poverty, her eyes dropped and 
then lifted, begging pity. But the milkman had al- 
ready turned his back on her. 

Mashah stared blindly into the dark hall, so 
stunned by her worries that she did not even see me. 

To think that Moe Mirsky could shine like a prince 
of plenty while my sister’s face was so black with 
want! ‘There flashed before mea picture of her when 
she was a young girl, standing proud in the power of 
her beauty. And here she was slapped in the face by 
an unpaid bill. And I had come hoping to make a 
home with her! 

“Is Moe out of work again? When I met him at 
the corner he was blowing from himself like a mil- 
lionaire.”’ 

At the sound of my voice, Mashah looked up. 

**Sara—you here? And you heard it all?”’ 

I nodded. Then I asked her again what her 
husband was doing. 


146 BREAD GIVERS 


‘Moe is working all right. But he bought himself 
a new suit last week and a new overcoat this week, so 
there wasn’t anything left for the house.”’ 

I followed Mashah through into the kitchen. The 
gas was burning, although outside was still bright 
sunshine. The one window was close up to a 
jammed-in tenement that shut out all light. But 
Mashah had lit up the dingy darkness with her love 
for beauty. With her own hands she had patched. 
up the broken plaster on the walls and painted them a 
golden yellow. ‘The rotten boards of the window sill 
and the shelves were hidden by white oilcloth and 
held in place by shining brass tacks. The stove was 
painted silver. White curtains of the cheapest 
cheesecloth were on the one window, but hung with 
that grace that Mashah put into anything she 
touched. 

‘“What patience you still have to keep things so 
beautiful,” [ said, gazing in wonder at the bright 
corner behind the silvered stove where the scoured 
pots and pans from the Five- and Ten-Cent Store 
hung in orderly rows from behind the polished brass 
nooks. And even her bits of wood from broken 
boxes were laid in such an even orderly pile that not a 
splinter shone on her spotless floor. 

“I couldn’t stand it if I had to live in the dirt like 
the women around me. It’s bad enough they shut 
out the light and let in the smells. But at least I 
can keep my own house clean.”’ 

Mashah sank wearily on a stool and pointed to a 


BREAD GIVERS 147 


chair for me to sit down. And now as I looked at 
her I saw what bloody toil it had cost to turn the 
dirt of poverty into this little palace of shining 
cleanliness. 

Beauty was in that house. But it had come out of 
Mashah’s face. The sunny colour of her walls had 
taken the colour out of her cheeks. The shine of her 
pots and pans had taken the lustre out of her hair. 
And the soda with which she had scrubbed the floor 
so clean, and laundered her rags to white, had burned 
in and eaten the beauty out of her hands. 

“Don’t stare at me like that!”’ cried Mashah. “I 
know how I look. Tell me better about yourself. 
How do you come here, so early?” 

I told her how I suffered through the night at 
Bessie’s and that I left home. 

Where will you live? What will you do? With 
Moe for my bread giver I’m too dirt-poor to help 
you.” 

“You think I’ve come to hang myself on your neck? 
I can get a job quicker’n lightning. If I stay with 
you, I’ll pay for my eating.”’ 

Mashah’s face brightened. ‘“‘Maybe your coming 
will give me the chance to tear myself out of the house 
some Sunday. Since the babies came I’m like in a 
prison. And yet, come see how lucky I am, they are 
so good,” 

We went into the other room. Danny and Ruthy 
were playing on the floor, happily tearing up an old 
newspaper. 


148 BREAD GIVERS 


Mashah sat down to feed the baby, Danny and 
Ruthy cuddled against her knees, playing with the 
baby’s feet. Gone were the worry and fear from Ma- 
shah’s eyes. It breathed from her, the pride and the 
joy that these three were born of her, fed by her, liv- 
ing and breathing because of her being. 

Sunshine flowed out of her eyes over her children. 
“When I have them like this, I feel I’m holding the 
riches of heaven in my arms.” 

The room darkened. ‘The gas jet began to flicker 
and go out. ( 

“Oh, my God!” Frightened worry came back 
into Mashah’s face. “The gas is going out. It’s a 
quarter meter. What shall I do? Where shall I 
borrow now?” 

Mashah thrust the children on the floor. ‘“‘Such a 
miserable existence! JI wish they were never born. 
Can I never run away from this money—money— 
money!” 

The children got so scared, they all began to cry. 

“Why do you leave out your misery on their inno- 
cent heads?” I scolded Mashah. 

“It’s their innocence that chains me to this misery. 
‘T’m insulted by the milkman, shamed by the grocer, 
kicked like a dog by their father, all on account of 
them.” 

While Mashah tore at her hair, cursing the bitter 
luck of her poverty, I took a quarter out of my counted 
pennies, climbed on a chair, and put it into the meter. 

The room grew light again. The children stopped 


BREAD GIVERS 149 


their crying. But Mashah no longer had patience 
to look at them. She turned to the tub full of soak- 
ing clothes. ‘“‘I’ve got to get all this out on a line, the 
dinner cooked, and the children in bed before Moe 
comes.” 

Savagely, she clapped a shirt on the washboard. 
Her back humped like an angry cat’s as she flung into 
the tub. Again the grind of poverty hardened her 
face. Again the crazy, wasting hurry to beat the 
race of the hours—forcing her two thin hands to do 
the work of a steam laundry. 

Toward evening, I put the children to bed while 
Mashah rushed to get the dinner ready. And then 
for half an hour the eating stood on the table and 
Moe didn’t come. At last, Mashah got tired of 
watching the clock and we sat down to eat. 

We had no sooner finished washing up the dishes 
when the bread giver came in, smiling, carefree, 
blowing his chest with pride and pleasure in himself. 
The sight of his piggish face and new-bought clothes 
got me so mad that I fled to the next room. 

“How you look!” Moe’s voice was full of dis- 
gust. ‘““The janitress is more decent dressed.” 

“Why didn’t you come home for dinner?” asked 
Mashah, with the patience of long-suffering. “I 
waited for you again.” 

“‘T have to have peace to think out my business 
worries.” 

“But it cost you so much to eat out.” 

“What do you think, I depend on what you cook 


150 BREAD GIVERS 


for me? For my dollar I can go to the finest restau- 
rant, and I’m served like a king.” 

“I’m going crazy from the bills, while you 

“Who tells you to make bills? If you have no 
money, then don’t buy anything.” 

He drew a cigarette from his silk vest, lit it, and 
then, through the smoke, he eyed her coldly. “‘ You’re 
nothing but a worn-out rag.” 

‘““How can I take time to look decent, with all the 
work and worry on my head?” 

“Tf it would be in you, you’d find time. With 
your worn-out face, nice clothes would be wasted on 
you.” 

Mashah sank into a chair, her drawn lips whitened 
with pain. Moe glanced at her swollen ankles. 
“‘ Always there’s something the matter with you. I 
hate sick people. You’re just like a horse. You 
work, work, till you can’t move. You don’t know 
when to stop till you drop. If I’d ever go out with 
you now, people would only wonder how such a nice 
man come to have such a worn-out rag for a wife.” 

I had been trying to control myself. But now I 
could hold in no longer. I rushed into the kitchen. 

““If you were my husband, I’d kill you. Id scrub 
floors sooner than live with a thing like you.” 

“You would, eh?” His eyes reddened with rage 
as he glared at me. “I’m not your husband. And 
the way I run my house is none of your damn busi- 
ness.” 

“It 1s my business. Mashah is my sister. How 


93 


BREAD GIVERS 161 


dare you eat yourself in a restaurant while the 
children’s milk bill is unpaid? You married Mashah 
because she was beautiful, then you piled your chil- 
dren on her neck, starved her, wore her out. You 
spoiled her beauty. Then you blame her for losing 
ted 

“Get the hell out of here! If I put my hands on 
you, I’Il break your neck. ‘The idea of a little skinny 
runt telling me how to run my home!” 

Even in my fury I saw the hopelessness of trying to 
take Mashah’s part when she hadn’t the grit to stand 
up for herself. I stepped into the next room, seized 
my hat and coat, and walked out. 


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BOOK II 
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 


ee 


Latina 


: Hi 


CHAPTER X 


I SHUT THE DOOR 


URNING me out in the street like dirt! The 
heartlessness! Moe Mirsky! He'll yet suffer 
for my suffering. I?ll yet show him, and show 
Zalmon, and show them all whoI am. Ach! Only 
to make myself somebody great—and have them 
come begging favours at my feet. 

And then it flashed to me. The story from the 
Sunday paper. A girl—slaving away in the shop. 
Her hair was already turning gray, and nothing had 
ever happened to her. Then suddenly she began to 
study in the night school, then college. And worked 
and studied, on and on, till she became a teacher in 
the schools. 

A school teacher—I! I saw myself sitting back 
like a lady at my desk, the children, their eyes on me, 
watching and waiting for me to call out the different 
ones to the board, to spell a word, or answer me a 
question. It was like looking up to the top of the 
highest skyscraper while down in the gutter. 

All night long I walked the streets, drunk with my 
dreams. I didn’t know how the hours flew, how or 
where my feet carried me, until I saw the man turning 


155 


156 BREAD GIVERS 


out the lights of the street lamps. Was it already 
morning? The silence woke up from the block. 
There began the rumbling of milk wagons, the clat- 
ter of bottles and cans, and the hum of opening stores, 
peddlers filling their pushcarts with fruit and loaves 
of bread. I wasn’t a bit tired, but I was starving 
hungry, and I walked into the nearest bakery for a 
cup of coffee with two rolls, for ten cents. 

As I sat there, in the stillness of the morning, I 
realized that I had yet never been alone since I was 
born. ‘This was the first time I ate by myself, with 
silence and stillness for my company. 

At home, when they sat down to eat, all my sisters 
were talking everything at once. I remember one 
night, coming home from the shop, my bones crack- 
ing from tiredness. I crawled into the bedroom and 
tried to close the door. 

**What is the matter? Are you sick?”’ they asked. 

“No. I only want a little quiet in me. I only 
want to be alone.” 

“Look only the princess!”” My sisters dragged me 
back to the noisy kitchen. ‘‘Crazy! Ain’t we good 
enough for you any more?” 

Even after my sisters were married, mealtime was 
when Mother let out her bitter heart of worry and 
Father hammered out his preaching like a wound-up 
phonograph. In the shop, the girls were talking all 
at once, clothes, styles, beaux, and dances—each one 
trying to out-yell the other. Perhaps in this same 
bakery it would be full of noise in an hour or two. 


I SHUT THE DOOR 157 


But now, thank God, it was still. And I was alone 
in that stillness. 

How strong, how full of life and hope I felt as I 
walked out of that bakery. I opened my arms, 
burning to hug the new day. ‘The strength of a 
million people was surging up in me. I felt I could 
turn the earth upside down with my littlest finger. I 
wanted to dance, to fly 1n the air and kiss the sun and 
stars with my singing heart. I, alone with myself, 
was enjoying myself for the first time as with 
grandest company. 

In this high-hearted mood I began to look for a 
room where I could be alone. All the room-to-let 
signs that I passed seemed like so many doors open- 
ing to a new life. ‘The first house I tried, the to-let 
room was on the top floor. I flew up the five flights 
of stairs as on wings. 

“You have a room?” I asked, my eyes laughing 
and my voice singing the joy in me. 

A hard, mean look hit me in the face. 

“I don’t take girls.” And the woman slammed 
the door. 

In the next house, I walked up a little slower, and 
my voice had a quietness not like my own. A 
washed-out, thin-lipped woman with little suspicious 
eyes examined me. “No girls,” snapped this one, 
too. 

“Why no girls?” I dared ask the skinny tsarina. 

“I want to keep my house clean. No cooking, no 
washing. Less trouble, less dirt, with men.” 


158 ‘BREAD GIVERS | 


My heart sank to my feet. But I forced myself to 
hunt on. I had to find a place to live. 

In the rear basement, a fat yentch, in a loose wrap- 
per, showed me a little cofiin of a room, dark as the 
srave. ‘I got three girls sleeping here already. And 
there’s yet a place for a fourth in the bed. I charge 
only three dollars a month.” 

“IT want a room all alone to myself.” 


*“Youf A room alone?” She gave me one fierce 


look till my cheeks beganto burn. “This is a decent 
house. I’m a respectable woman.” : 


On and on I searched. . . . Each place took 


it out of me more and more. For the first time in 
my life I saw what a luxury it was for a poor girl to 
want to be alone in a room. 

My knees bent under me. I was ready to drop 
from weariness when I[ saw a crooked sign, in a scrawl- 
ing hand, “Private Room, A Bargain Cheap.” 

It was a dark hole on the ground floor, opening into 
a narrow airshaft. The only window where some 
light might have come in was thick with black dust. 
The bed see-sawed on its broken feet, one shorter 
than the others. The mattress was full of lumps, 
and the sheets were shreds and patches. But the 
room had a separate entrance to the hall. <A door I 
could shut. And it was only six dollars a month. 

“This is just the thing for me,” I cried. “I'll 
clean it up like a little palace.” 

Through half-shut eyes the woman examined me. 
“Can you pay on time?” she asked. 


I SHUT THE DOOR 159 


“Of course I can pay.” I drew myself up, tall as 
the ceiling. 

“By what you work?” 

“Tm not asking for any charity that I should have 
to tell you my business.”’ 

“But I got to know if you’re working steady, to 
pay me my rent.” 

“You won’t have to worry. I’m working by day 
and studying for a teacher by night.” 

She drew back as if I was about torob her. ‘“‘My 
gas! My gas bill. What I’d get from your rent, I’d 
lose on the gas. I already had an experience with 
one like you. She took out books from the library. 
And in the middle of the night, I could see by the 
crack in the door that she was burning away my gas, 
reading.” 

IT looked atthe room. A separate door to myself— 
a door to shut out all the noises of the world, and only 
six dollars. Where could I get such a bargain in the 
whole East Side? 

Like a drowning person clinging to a rope, my 
tired body edged up to that door and clung to it. 
My hands clutched at the knob. This door was life. 
It was air. The bottom starting-point of becoming a 
person. I simply must have this room with the 
shut door. And I must make this woman rent it to 
me. If I failed to get it, I’d drop dead at her feet. 

‘Look only on me!’”’ I commanded her. “You’re 
asmart woman. You ought to know yourself on a 
person, first sight. Here, | give you a month’s rent 


160 BREAD GIVERS 


in advance.”’ And I pushed the six dollars into her 
hand. 5 

Her whole face lighted up with friendliness. She 
counted the money. Then kissing each dollar for 
good luck, she handed me the key. 

At last alone,in my room. [let go everything, the 
weight of my body falling against the closed door. 
The aloneness was enough for me, and in a moment 
it sank me to sleep. 

The first thing when I opened my eyes, I counted 
out the money I had left in my little knot. Only 
three dollars and sixty-five cents between me and 
hunger. A job. And I must get it at once. 

It was slack season in the factories. I walked the 
streets, wondering where to turn for work, when I 
passed a laundry. A big printed sign was in the 
window: “Ironer wanted.” 

As I opened the door, a blinding wave of heat 
étruck my face. ‘The air was full of the sweaty smell 
of washing clothes. At the back, girls could scarcely 
be seen through the clouds of steam. Hair was 
sticking to their faces. Necks streamed with sweat. 

A huge, bulgy-faced man sat on the counter, mark- 
ing collars. 

“Do you need an ironer?” I asked. 

He looked at me from his big height till I felt like a 
speck of dust under his feet. With a grunt, he went 
on marking the laundry. 

I put my courage into my teeth and faced him. 
“You got a sign out, ‘Ironer wanted.’” , 


I SHUT THE DOOR 161 


“Yes, but not you,” he growled. ‘‘I want someone 
who can swing an iron.” And he pointed with his 
thumb to a husky German woman with giant, red 
arms, who ironed a white dress with big, steady 
strokes. ‘“‘That’s the kind I need for an ironer.” 

‘But let me only show you how good I can iron,” I 
begged. “I was quicker than the big ones in my 
shop.” 

He tried me with an iron at an empty board with a 
small lot. But though I put all my strength into it, 
I was so nervous with him watching me, I thought 
the job was lost. But the man nodded kindly as I 
handed him the ironed apron. “You got guts all 
tight,” he chuckled. “Tl start you at the mangle 
for five a week, and later I’ll break you into an 
ironer.”’ 

By the evening, I was so tired that I walked into the 
Grand Street Cafeteria for something to eat. I had 
read about the place in the paper. Kind, rich ladies 
had opened it for working girls, to have their meals in 
beautiful surroundings and cheap. : 

It was good to see flowers on the table. And the 
clean, educated face of the lady manager who sat by 
the desk. I needed something beautiful to look at 
after that hard day in the laundry. The portions 
were a little skimpy. But the white curtains and the 
clean, restful place lifted me with longing for the 
higher life. } 

Great dreams spurred my feet on my way to night 
school. 


162 BREAD GIVERS- 


‘What do you want to learn?”’ asked the teacher 
at the desk. 

“‘T want to learn everything in the school from the 
beginning to the end.” 

She raised the lids of [her cold eyes and stared at 
me. ‘‘Perhaps you had better take one thing at a 
time,” she said, indifferently. ‘“There’s a commercial 
course, manual training——”’ 


“TY want a quick education for a teacher,” I cried. | 
A hard laugh was my answer. Then she showed 


me the lists of the different classes, and I came out 
of my high dreams by registering for English and 
arithmetic. 

Then I began five nights a week in a crowded class 
of fifty, with a teacher so busy with her class that she 
had no time to notice me. 

The first morning in my room, I awoke very early. 
My head was clear, and I looked with full eyes on the 
thick dirt that I had grabbed in such anxious haste. 
There were only a few rusty nails on the door for my 
clothes. The table was shaky and the one chair was 
patched with boards. 

Against this heart-choking dinginess flashed Ma- 
shah’s shining little palace. Her place was once 
worse than this, and she polished it up. Why can’t 
I? A pot of paint, a little white oilcloth with brass 
tacks, a scrubbing brush with soap. But first of all, 
I thought, if only I could wash away the mud of ages 
from that window, it would make it lighter in the 
room. 


ee Oe ee a eee re 


I SHUT THE DOOR 163 


When my landlady saw me start on my cleaning, 
she cried warningly: “I never washed the windows 
since I lived here, not even for the holidays, because 
the upstairs tenants—a black year on them—are 
always throwing down things. Their hands should 
only fall to their sides.” 

But I wouldn’t listen to her, and began to wash the 
window. The minute | stuck my head out, a bunch 
of potato peelings fellon me. I shook off the peelings 
and went on with the washing. Someone began shak- 
ing a carpet. Then a shower of ashes blinded me. 

I sank on the bed, all the strength out of my arms 
and fingers. The deadening dirt! How could I ever 
do anything in this airless gloom? If I open the 
window the dirt will be flying in. If I keep it closed, 
how can I breathe? 

I don’t ask for fancy furniture, but only a little 
light for the eyes, only a clean window such as 
Mashah has in her blackest poverty. 

The sound of the factory whistle brought me to my 
feet. Already seven o'clock. My fussing over the 
window made it too late for me to start cooking my 
coffee for breakfast. I grabbed a slice of black 
bread and ate as I hurried tothe car. . . . Fool 
that I am, trying to imitate Mashah, her cleanliness. 
Ten hours I must work in the laundry. “Two hours 
in the night school. Two hours more to study my 
lessons. When can I taketime to be clean? If I’m 
to have strength and courage to go on with what [ 
set out to do, I must shut my eyes to the dirt. 


164 BREAD GIVERS 


That evening, after night school, I spread my books 
out on my table and began to hammer into my thick 
head the difference between a noun, a verb, and a 
preposition. Oh, the noise around me. But I 


tried to struggle on with the lesson. . . . “A 
noun is the name of anything . . . ? A verb is 
the predicate of action . . . ? A preposition con- 
nects words . . . ?” 


The more | repeated the definitions the more mixed 
up I got. It was all words, words, about words. 

Maybe it was the terrible racket that was mud- 
dling my brain. Phonographs and pianolas blared 
against each other. Voices gossiping and jabbering 
across the windows. Wailing children. The yowling 
shrieks of two alley cats. The shrill bark of a hungry 
pup. 

The jarring clatter tore me by the hair, stretched 
me out of my skin, and grated under my teeth. I 
felt like one crucified in a torture pit of noise. 

Then I clasped my hands over my head and began 
talking to myself: “Stop all this sensitiveness, or 
you re beaten already before the fight is begun. 
You've got to study. As you had to shut your eyes 
to the dirt, so you must shut your ears to the noise.” 

A quietness within me soothed my tortured nerves. 
I turned to my books on the table, and with fierce 


determination to sink myself into my head, I began ~ 


my lessons again. 


CHAPTER XI 
A PIECE OF MEAT 


Y THE whole force of my will I could reason 
B myself out of the dirt and noise around me. 
But how could | reason with my hungry 
stomach? How could I stretch my five dollars a 
week to meet all my needs? 

I took a piece of paper and wrote it all down. A 
dollar and a half for rent. Sixty cents for carfare. 
I couldn’t walk that long distance to work and back 
and have time for night school. No saving there. 
And I must put aside at least fifty cents a week to 
pay back Mother’s rent money. What is there left 
for food? ‘Two dollars and forty cents. ‘That means 
thirty-four and two-sevenths cents a day. How 
could I have enough to eat from that? But that’s 
all I can have now. Somehow, it’s got to do. 

But whenever I passed a restaurant or a delicates- 
sen store, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the food 
in the window. Something wild in me wanted to 
break through the glass, snatch some of that sausage 
and corned-beef, and gorge myself just once. 

One day in the laundry, while busy ironing a 
shirt, the thought of Mother’s cooking came over me. 
Why was it that Mother’s simplest dishes, her plain 

165 


166 BREAD GIVERS 


potato soup, her gefzlie fish, were so filling? And 
what was the matter with the cafeteria food that it 
left me hungrier after eating then before? 

For a moment I imagined myself eating Mother’s 
gefulte fish. A happy memory floated over me. A 
feast | was having. What a melting taste in the 
mouth! 

“‘ Hey—there!”’ 
me. 

Oi weh ! Smoke was rising from under my iron. 

“Oh, Pll wash it out,” I gasped in fright, as I lifted 
the iron and saw the scorched triangle. 

But the boss snatched the shirt away from me. 
“Three dollars out of your wages for this,” he raged. 

Not a word could I say. Either it was to lose ay 
job or pay. And I could not lose my job. 

Three dollars out from my wages, when every 
fraction of a penny was counted out where it had to 
go. Maybe for weeks I’d have to live on dry bread 
to make up the loss. I got so frightened, from 
weakness I longed to throw myself in some dark cor- 
ner, only to weep away my bitter luck. But I dared 
not let go. The boss was around. I picked up the 
iron again, though I could hardly shift the weight 
back and forth. 

A terrible hunger rose up in me—a hunger I had 
been trying to forget since my lunch of two stale 
slices of bread and a scrap of cheese. Just when I 
had to begin saving more from eating, the starvation 
of days and weeks began tearing and dragging down 


cried the boss, rushing madly at 


A PIECE OF MEAT 167 


my last strength. Let me at least have one dinner 
with meat before I begin to starve. For that last 
hour of work, I saw before my eyes meat, only meat, 
great, big chunks of it. And I biting into the meat. 

Like a wolf with hunger, I ran to the cafeteria. 
From the end of the line, I saw the big, printed bill of 
fare: 


Roast beef, 25c. 
Roast lamb, 30c. 
Beef stew, 20¢c. 


My eyes stopped. Over the word stew, I saw big 
chunks of meat, carrots, and peas, with thick brows 
gravy. I reached for the tray, and took my place 
on the line. I was like a mad thing straining toward 
the pots of food, and the line seemed to stand for ever 
in one place. A big, husky, fat man stood behind 
me. He held his tray so that the end poked into 
my ribs every time he shuffled on his feet. But, 
thank God, the line began to move up, slowly nearer 
the serving table. 

My anxious eyes leaped to the faces of the servers. 
I tried to see which one of them served the stew. 
My portion depended on her mood of the minute. If 
I’m lucky to strike her when she feels good, then the 
spoon will go deep down into the pot and come up 
heaping full. If she feels mean, then I get only from 
the tip of the spoon, a stingy portion. God! She 
holds in her hands my life, my strength, new blood 
for my veins, new clearness in my brain to go on 


168 BREAD GIVERS 


with the fight. Oh! If she would only give me 
enough to fill myself, this one time! : 

At last I reached the serving table. 

**Stew with a lot of meat in it.” 

Breathlessly, I watched how far the spoon would 
go into the pot. A hot sweat broke over my face as 
I saw the mean hunks of potato and the skinny strings 
of meat floating in the starched gravy which she 
handed me. 

‘Please, won’t you put in one real piece of meat?” 
And I pushed back the plate for more. 

I might as well have talked to the wall. She did 
not see me or hear me. Her eyes were smiling back 
to the fat man behind me who grinned knowingly at 
her. 

“Stew,” was all he said. 

She picked up my plate, pushed the spoon deep 
down into the pot and brought it up heaping with 
thick chunks of meat. 

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! I’Il take it now,” 
I cried, reaching for it with both hands. 

“No, you don’t.”” And the man took the plate 
from the server and set it on his tray. 

Speechless, bewildered, I stood there, unable to 
move. 

“TI asked for stew—stew !” 

“‘I gave you some and you didn’t take it.” She 
sniffed. 

“But you didn’t give me as much as you gave him. 
Isn’t my money as good as his?” 


A PIECE OF MEAT 169 


*Don’t you know they always give men more?” 
called a voice from the line. 

“Tt takes a woman to be mean to a woman,” piped 
up another. 

“You're holding up the line,”’ said the head lady, 
coming over, with quiet politeness. 

‘I want stew,’ came again from my tight throat. 

“She gave you a fair portion.” 

**But why did she give more to the man just be- 
cause he was a man? I’m hungry.” 

Allthe reply I got wasacold glance. ‘Please move 
on or step out of the line.” 

People began to titter and stare at me. Even the 
girl at the serving table laughed as she put on a man’s 
_ plate a big slice of fried liver, twice as big as she 
would have given me. 

“Cheaters! Robbers!” I longed to cry out to 
them. “Why do you have flowers on the table and 
cheat a starving girl from her bite of food?” But 
I was too trampled to speak. With tight lips, I 
walked out. 

In the street, there was no cheap restaurant in 
sight. I had a dreary feeling that it was the same in 
every other place. Since I must starve next week, I 
might as well begin now. I went home boiling with 
hate for the whole world. 

In my room, I found the tail end of a loaf of bread. 
Each bite I swallowed was wet with my tears. 

It was so cold that night that in every tenement 
people huddled into their beds early and put all their 


170 BREAD GIVERS 


clothes over themselves to keep warm. So cold it 
was, even the gas froze. 

I stuck a candle into a bottle, took up my grammar, 
struggling to forget my bitterness, studying. Every- 
thing I had I wrapped around myself and, buried in 
my thin bedclothes, I held on to my book. 

My feet were lumps of ice. How could I study? 
But I would. I must. I forced myself to keep to 
my lessons like one forcing himself awake when he’s 
falling asleep. 

Arapcametothe door. It was repeated over and 
over again before I could drag myself out of my cover- 
ings to see who it was. 

“Mother!” I cried. Yes, there stood my mother, 
a shawl over her head and a big bundle on her back. 
She threw her arms around me and kissed me hun- 
erily. 

“In a night like this, I thought you’d need a 
feather bed,” she said, throwing her bundle on my 
cot. Her face was stiff with cold, and she blew on 
her half-frozen fingers. 

‘All the way frem Elizabeth for you to carry it,” 
I cried. In the sputtering light of the candle, her 
sunken eyes gleamed out of their black sockets with 
a dumb, pleading love that made me hate myself 
for my selfishness. It seemed to me I never knew 
till now how close to my heart my mother was. 

“‘Here’s a jar of herring that I pickled for you,” 
she said, unwrapping it from an old newspaper. “A 


A PIECE OF MEAT 171 


piece of herring on bread, and you have already a 
good meal.” 

Her goodness hurt so that I began talking fast to 
keep back the tears in my throat. 

*“How is Father? How is business? How could 
you get away from the store?” 

“It’s lodge night, and your father will be away 
till late. With all my hurrying it took so long to get 
here, that I'll have to go back in a few minutes to be 
home before he comes.” 

Hours she travelled, only to see me for a few min- 
utes. God! How much bigger was Mother’s good- 
ness than my burning ambition to rise in the world! 

“Mother! You’re so good to me. What can I 
do back for you?” I said, feeling small under her 
feet with unworthiness. 

*“Only come to see me soon.” 

“I'd do anything for you. I’d give you away my 
life. But I can’t take time to go ’way out to Eliza- 
beth. Every little minute must go to my studies.” 

*‘I tore myself away from all my work to come to 
see you.” 

“But you re not studying for college.” 

“Is college more important than to see your old 
mother?”’ 

“I could see you later. But I can’t go to college 
later. Think only of the years I wasted in the shop 
instead of school, and I must catch up all that lost 
time.” ‘ 


an BREAD GIVERS 


““You’re young yet. You have plenty of time.” 

“It’s because I’m young that my minutes are like 
diamonds to me. I have so much to learn before I 
can enter college. But won’t you be proud of me 
when I work myself up for a school teacher, in 
America?” 

“‘I’d be happier to see you get married. What’s a 
school teacher? Old maids—all of them. It’s good 
enough for Goyim, but not for you.” 

“Don’t worry. I'll even get married some day. 
But to marry myself to a man that’s a person, I must 
first make myself for a person.” 

Mother shook her head. ‘‘dch! Already I must 
go.” But her feet stuck to the floor and her hands 
clung to me for many minutes before she could tear 
herself away. Long after she had gone, I felt her 
still in the room. 

As I tucked my shivering bones under the feather- 
bed, I felt that nothing on earth was as warm as 
Mother’s love. Gone was the rankling hurt I had 
suffered at the cafeteria. I forgot to hate even the 
fat man and the head lady with her cold, low-voiced 
politeness. All the bitterness of my heart was for- 
gotten. 

I laughed when I thought of poor dear old Mother 
—coming so far with that big feather bed on her back. 

How warm I am. . . . If only I had 
time to go to see her. . . . To-morrow, I'll sit 
up in bed, warm, for once, and study my grammar. 


CHAPTER XII 
MY SISTERS AND I 


STOOD in my roon, stirring the pot of oatmeal 
| with one hand, and with the other I held on to 
my history book. I always had to read while 
cooking to make myself forget the dreary little meal 
I had to eat all by myself. I hated my stomach. It 
was like some clawing wild animal in me that I had 
to stop to feed always. I hated my eating. And 
yet I could hardly wait till my oatmeal was finished. 
I kept swallowing spoonfuls while it was still cooking. 
I glanced at the boiling pot. . . . Idon’t have 
toshareit withanyone. . . . That’s what made 
it so hateful. A longing came over me for the old 
kitchen in Hester Street. Even in our worst’ poverty 
we sat around the table, together, like people. Even 
Father’s preaching and Mother’s worrying made 
mealtimes something higher than mere eating and 
filling the stomach. 

How long since I ate Mother’s meals with the fam- 
ily! How far away they all seemed! How torn 
apart and divided! When will I have time to see 
them again? 

Before I had a chance to put the pot back on the 
stove, who should burst in but Fania and Bessie. 

173 


174 BREAD GIVERS 


“You here—Fania?”’ I cried, as we hugged and 
kissed each other. 

‘Just got off the train,” put in Bessie, excitedly. 
*“And I brought her to you, before she even saw 
Mother.” 


They sat down on my cot. What a picture of © 


poverty and riches! Bessie in her old fish-store 
clothes, a ragged kooshenierkeh; Fania, like a Queen of 
Sheba, shining with silks and sparkling with dia- 
monds. 

Fania looked scornfully around my dingy room. 

“‘How can you bury yourself alive in such a black 
hole? How do you ever breathe here? A girl like 
you, if you’d come with me to Los Angeles, you’d 
live and laugh.” 

“Tl live and laugh after I pass my college exam- 
inations.” 

“For what does a girl need to be so educated? 
You can read and write. You know enough. But 
look at her, Bessie. Ain’t it a shame to let herself 
go down like this?’? Fania picked at the patched 
elbow of my worn-out serge. “You're a young girl 
yet, Sara; why don’t you put on a little style?” 

“I haven’t time or money for the outside show.” 

“The outside show? What else do people see?” 

I glanced at my stylish sister. Was this dressed- 
up, grand lady the same Fania who was once loved 
by the poor poet Lipkin? Gone was the innocence 
of young dreams from her eyes. Good eating, good 
sleeping, and the sunshine of plenty breathed from 


—— 


Se ee eg 


=~ 


MY SISTERS AND I 175 
her face. And she held her head high, as if she didn’t 


come from the same family as the rest of us. But for 
all her shine, I could see in the shadowy places under 
her eyes thready lines of restlessness. 

**Are you at least happy with your riches?” My 
hand touched her shoulder as I searched her face. 

“Why shouldn’t she be happy?” said Bessie. 
“Look at her, only! Like a born Mrs. Vanderbilt! 
Her husband must be rolling in money, and he gives 
it all to her. And she has no stepchildren like me, 
either.” 

Fania did not answer. The satisfied look suddenly 
faded from her face, leaving her eyes hard and stony. 
Then her lips began to work and she burst into bitter 
weeping. 

**Gives it all to me,” she sobbed, wiping her wet 
face. “He wants me to be dressed in the latest 
style, yet he kicks I’m spending all his money. He 
wants everything grand but cheap. When I pay a 
hundred dollars for a suit, I’ve got to tell him it’s 
fifty. To keep his mouth shut and not to have any 
fights, I feed him with lies. Getting money from him 
is like pulling teeth. These diamonds that you see 
on me, that’s his saving bank. He buys me jewellery 
only to show me off to his friends that he’s so rich.” 

She covered her face with her hands, struggling to 
control her unhappiness. “Where I live, | haven’t a 
friend totalk to. All they do out there is play cards. 
And I play with them, only to forget myself. I 
-an't stand it to be alone.”’ 


176 BREAD GIVERS 


“Why don’t you read the way you used to when 
you were home?”’ I asked. 

“T can’t look at a book. My head stopped with 
my troubles. Ach! How can you people know 
what it is to be miserable as I am.” 

The proud grand lady crumpled before my eyes 


into nothing but an East Side yenteh, with a broken © 


heart. 

So this is what it was to be the wife of a cloaks- 
and-suits millionaire! 

“But, thank God, you look so well.’”’ I tried to 
find some bright spot to encourage her. 

“It’s only fat you see on me. And this is just 
paint,” she said, pointing to her cheeks. 

“Don’t sin,” warned Bessie. ‘“‘You’re better off 
than me. You got a servant to do your work, so 
you got time even to paint your face.” 

“Why shouldn’t I have a servant? Abe can lose 
five hundred or a thousand dollars playing poker in 
the wink of an eye, so why should I be slaving in the 
kitchen?” 

She leaped up from her chair, as though to tear 
herself from her chains. ‘‘What eats out my heart 
worst of all is when I begin to look back what my life 
might have been with Morris Lipkin.” 

“Father didn’t bury you so deep under the ground 
as me,” sighed Bessie. “What have I from my life? 
Carp, flounder, pike, morning, noon, and night.” 

Poor Bessie! With her pitiful thin face squeezed 
dry of hope or happiness. Older, more life-weary 


— a a ad 


- ——— 


MY SISTERS AND I 177 


than Mother she looked, in her old, crushed hat and 
her big, coarse shoes. 

“Let me tell you it’s terrible to be a stepmother,” 
she wailed. “At first I sewed and scrubbed and 
killed myself cooking for Zalmon’s children. But 
you can never do enough for them. . . . The 
first dance Minnie ever went to with a young man, 
I bought her a grand piece of pink silk for adress. I 
stayed up half the night sewing, but before it was half 
done, she said I didn’t have any style. She had 
to take it to an uptown dressmaker. When she be- 
gan finding fault with my work I got so choked that 
I began to cry and pull my hair. Nothing I do for 
these children is right for them.” 

“Then I’m better off than you married people!”’ 
I exclaimed. “‘It’s not a picnic to live alone. But 
at least I’ve no boss of a husband to crush_the spirit 
in me.” 

“But who wants to be an old maid?” cried Fania. 
“Some day you got to get married. Better come 
with me to Los Angeles. I’ve a wonderful young 
man for you out there. He and Abe are going into 
partnership, and I can easy rope him in for you.” 

“Tl tell you the truth, Fania, the kind of a man 
that could be partners with Abe is not the kind that 
could love me, or that I could love. Besides, I don’t 
want to get married. I’ve set out to do something 
and I’m going to do it, even if it kills me.” 

“Tt may not kill you. But if you’re left an old 
maid it’s worse.” 


178 BREAD GIVERS 


She seized me by the arm. “Put on your hat and 
coat and come with us to Mother.” 

“If you only knew what a big bunch of lessons I’ve 
got to cram into my head in this one little day.” 

“But this is Sunday. Even the schools are shut 
down to-day.”’ 

“My work goes on Sundays and holidays. I’m 
like a soldier in battle. I can’t stop for visiting, even 
with my own family.” 

“You hard heart!’ Fania threw up her hands at 
me. ‘“‘Come, Bessie. Let’s leave her to her mad 
education. She’s worse than Father with his Holy 
Torah.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


OUTCAST 


OONTIME in the laundry. All the girls were 
N together giggling and laughing and enjoying 
themselves as they atetheir lunch. Only I 
was alone in the corner, cramming my grammar. A 
longing to join the crowd and be happy with them 
came over me. Sol closed my book and moved my 
stool nearer, to hear what the fun was all about. 
“You think that was bad,”’ Minnie Feist was say- 
ing. “‘Gee whiz! ‘That was nothing. You should 
have seen what I seen in Coney Island on the beach.”’ 
Then a loud whisper and with meaningful glances she 
started to tell a coarse, funny story. I grew hot and 
cold with shame as they burst out in shouts of laugh- 
ter. 
Instinctively, I moved my chair back to my own 
place. 
Daggers shot at me from all eyes. 
*“Give only a look on her, the lady !_ Who does she 
think she is?”’ 
“Huh! That thing blows yet from herself.” 
“Pure she is! Innocent! Pfui! Leaves a father 
and mother for God knows why.” 
“T ask you only, why does a girl go to live alone?”’ 


179 


180 BREAD GIVERS 


How their words stabbed me. 

“We know, kid. Can’t fool us, baby!” 

““What’s his name? And she puts on airs yet like 
a holy one.” 

Angry jabbering pelted me till the whistle for work 
put an end to further insults. 

After that I was shut out like a “‘greenhorn’”’ who 
didn’t talk their language. When they gossiped 
beaux, or dances, or the latest styles, their mouths 
snapped tight when I got near. When they planned 
any picnics or parties, I was left out. 

Hurt to the bone, I sank into a shell of stiff pride. 
I pretended not to see, not to hear the slights heaped 
on me. Lunchtime I was always apart in my corner, 
my head buried ina book. But often when I seemed 
to be reading, I longed to throw myself at the feet of 
the girls and cry out to them, “Say anything you 
like. Do anything you like. All right—hurt me. 
But don’t leave me out. I don’t want to be left out!”’ 

Even in school I suffered, because I was not like 
the rest. I irritated the teachers, stopping the les- 
sons with my questions. A bored weariness fell over 
the whole class the minute I started to speak. 
They’d begin to nudge each other by the sleeve and 
whisper, “Oh Lord! That bug! Again showing off 
her smartness!” They didn’t hunger and thirst for 
knowledge, they weren’t excited about anything they 
were learning, so it jarred on them that I was so ex- 
cited. To them I was only a selfish grabber of their 
time because I was so crazy to know too much. 


0 a 


OUTCAST 18 


One evening, the teacher was reading to us the list 
of subjects we'd have to pass to enter college. 

“Who are those bosses of education who made us 
study so much dead stuff?’ I asked. 

A frown of annoyance wrinkled the teacher’s face. 
The others began to wink and smile at one another, 
but I couldn’t help myself. My thoughts pushed 
themselves out of me. “I only want to know what 
interests me. Why should I have to choke myself 
with geometry? How can those tyrants over the 
college force all kinds of different people to stuff their 
heads with the same deadness that we all got to know 
aliker I want the knowledge that is the living 
ME ES 

Loud laughter fell like a chilling shower on me. 
Even the teacher joined inthe fun. After that, they 
never called me by name. ‘The minute I came they 
grinned and tittered, “There goes the living life!” 

Maybe if I could only live like others and look like 
others, they wouldn’t pick on me so much, I thought 
to myself. I studied myself in the mirror. I ex- 
amined, one by one, the features that gazed back at 
me. Tired eyes. Eyes that gazed far away at 
nothing. A set sadness about the lips like in old 
maids who'd given up all hope of happiness. A gray 
face. A stone face. ‘Turned to stone from not liv- 
ing. A black shirtwaist, high up tothe neck. Nota 
breath of colour. Everything about me was gray, 
drab, dead. I was only twenty-three and I dressed 
myself like an old lady in mourning. 


182 BREAD GIVERS 


I began talking to the gray face in the mirror. 
What had I done to myself to make myself look so old 
and ugly? Other girls as plain as 1, why do they look 
attractive? When they have no colour, they put on 
colour. That’s what I mustdo. Whynot? I want 
to be looked at, longed for, followed. . . . I 
hate my goodness. The only sin on earth 1s to let 
life pass you by. : 

The next day, I tdbk my little penny savings, and 
during lunch hour I went to the nearest department 
store. I bought lipstick, rouge, powder. A lace 
collar for my waist. Even red roses for my hat. 

Late into the night I spent fixing myself up, pin- 
ning the roses on my hat, trying on my lace collar 
this way and that, to show off the whiteness of my 
throat. A wildness possessed me to make up for the 
pale, colourless years. I saw myself in bright red 
and dazzling green and gold. I could beat them all 
if I only let loose the love of colour in me. My 
fingers trembled, and my eyes burned through the 
mirror as I began daubing on lipstick and rouge. 

I looked in the glass at the new self I had made. 
Now I was exactly like the others! Red lips, red 
cheeks, even red roses under the brim of my hat. 
Blackened lashes, darkened eyebrows. Soft, white 
lace at my neck. Ah! What a different picture! 
No old maid here! A young girl in the height of her 
bloom! . . . But my excited happiness soon 
sank down. I felt funny and queer. Something was 


a ee ras peta 4 = x a Ieee 
Di a A a Ne Sit ea yt le Ty 


OUTCAST 183 


wrong. As if my painted face didn’t hang together 
with the rest of me. On the outside I looked like 
the other girls. But the easy gladness that sparkled 
from their eyes was notin mine. ‘They were a bunch 
of light-hearted savages who looked gay because they 
felt gay. I was like a dolled-up dummy fixed for a 
part on the stage. 

“No—no! I will be like them!” I cried. “Vl 
go like this to work. I[’ve as much right to be gay 
and draw men as they.” 

But next morning, when I got into the street, [ 
grew panicky with self-consciousness. Everybody 
seemed staring at me. I felt shamed and confused 
with my false face. It was as though the rouge had 
turned into a mask, and I[ could not breathe through 
the cover. [ sneaked through the streets like a 
guilty thing. When I got to the laundry I hurried 
into the cloakroom to tear the roses off my hat and 
wash the paint off my face. But before I knew what 
or how, the girls crowded around me. 

“Give a look, only! The lady!” 

“Done it with a shovel!” 

**So scared, she’s got to scrape it off.”’ 

I turned to my work, raw with the shame that I 
had tried to be like the rest and couldn’t. 

I threw myself more desperately than ever into my 
studies. My one hope was to get to the educated 
_ world, where only the thoughts you give out count, 
and not how you look. My longing for the living 


184 BREAD GIVERS 


breath of a little understanding became centred more 
and more in my dream of going to college. Wherever 
I went, in the street, in the subway, by day and by 
night, I had always before my eyes a vision of myself 
in college, mingling every day with the inspired 
minds of great professors and educated higher-ups. 


CHAPTER XIV 
A MAN WANTED ME 


T SCHOOL one evening, the teacher returned 

A my examination paper. One look and my 

heart stopped. I had failed in geometry. 

How I had forced myself to study it! But the screw 
for figures seemed missing in my head. 

A terrible doubt got me. Maybe I wasn’t smart 
enough to swallow all that dry learning you had to 
swallow to enter college! Maybe I could never pass 
the entrance examinations! 

At this time of discouragement, a letter came from 
Fania: 


Max Goldstein, the man I told you about, is coming special to 
New York to see you. From what I told him about you he 
thinks you’re just the wife he needs. I only hope you'll be lucky 
enough to get him. 

Think only! You'll have your own house and garden. Your 
own car. You'll have servants do all your work for you. You'll 
be able to wear the best stylish clothes that money can buy. 
You'll lift up your head and know what life is. 

What have you, shutting yourself up in your black hole, not 
fit foradog? Youdon’t live. You don’t eat. You don’t dress 
like a person. And for what are you wearing out the best years 
of your youth? To work yourself up to be an old maid school 
teacher? 


185 


186 BREAD GIVERS 


I was too impatient to read on and threw away the 
letter. 

It was Sunday afternoon. No work and no school. 

It was always my best time for lessons. And now I 
had to begin studying all over again the geometry 
that I hated. The books were before me on the 
table. The pencils, the papers, but I could not touch 
them. I had no heart to begin. 
- Outside in the street it was sunshine. It was 
spring in the air. Other girls were enjoying them- 
selves with their young men. The whole world was 
alive. Only I was shut out of life. Living people 
want to live and I’m wasting myself with something 
so inhuman as squares and triangles. ‘That is why 
I’ve grown dead and inhuman myself. What’s all 
this book-learning compared to a free walk in the 
sunshine? 

Maybe Fania was right. If I keep on wearing out 
my years stuffing dead ashes of learning in my tired 
brain, later, when I’ll want to live and love, it will be 
too late. I'll be too old. 

I used to say to my loneliness: If it will not kill you, 


it will be the making of you. All great people have | 


to be alone to work out their greatness. But now 
all my high talk was hollow and unreal. The lone- 
liness of my little room rose about me like a thick 
blackness, about to fall on me and crush me. 

The minutes passed into hours. But I still could 
not force myself to begin my lessons. Never before 
did I let time go by me so wastefully. I hated the 


A MAN WANTED ME 187 


touch of the books before me as if they were living 
enemies. I hated the burdens I had put upon myself 
to get an education. I hated book-learning and 
colleges. All education was against life. I wanted 
to live and not stupefy myself with geometry. 

It was evening. The room was as dark as my 
heart. I was too tired to light the gas. I was just 
about to throw myself on my cot with all my things 
on. I wanted to forget everything and sleep my life 
away. 

Suddenly, a strong hand rapped my door. 

“Come in,” I yawned, turning on the light. 

A man! A man entered. And I knew, by the 
positive way in which he stepped into the room, that 
this was the one my sister had sent. 

“I know you better than your own sister, so much 
she’s been telling me about you,” he said, by way of 
introduction. “I’m Max Goldstein. Shake hands.” 

“Oh, yes—my sister wrote me.—But I did not 
expect you to-day.—My room is so upset.” 

He swept away my confusion with his hearty 
laugh. “What does the room matter? We’re 
friends already, aren’t we?”’ 

And so it was. I liked him instantly. If only he 
were not looking for a wife. That made me shrink 
from him with self-consciousness. 

_ **Your sister even told me how you won’t doll your- 

self up for men,” he laughed. “But I like you the 
way you are better than if you fixed yourself up in 
the grandest style. I like that part in the middle 


188 BREAD GIVERS 


of your hair. No painted cheeks. No painted lips. 
You look just like those home girls with all their in- 
nocence from Europe yet.” 

“Is this the way you talk to girls the minute you 
meet them?” I laughed back at him. : 


With a swift glance he took in everything in my 


room. ‘Your sister was making excuses for the way 
you live. I think more of you for standing on your 
own feet. I lived worse when I ran away from 
home. You and I are so much alike, because I, too, 
wanted to make my own way inthe world. And you 
remind me of my own beginning.” 

That man could wake the dead from their graves. 
‘Where was my discouragement now? My eyes could 
only follow his eyes. His slender body was all joyous 
youth. Full red lips. Huis hands and feet like wired 
electricity. I felt I’d be afraid to touch even the tips 
of his fingers for fear I’d get shocks. 

“Tell me about your running away.” I edged my 
chair nearer to him, in my excited eagerness. 

His face kindled with pleasure. It was like invit- 
ing him to a feast to ask him to talk about himself. 

“*T still see that first day when I got off the ship 
with my little bundle on my back. I was almost lost 
in the blowing snow of a freezing blizzard. Then I 
came upon a gang of men clearing the street with great 
shovels. At once, I saw that these men must be 
paid for their work. So I pushed myself in among 
them and begged for a shovel. ‘The big, fat foreman 
looked down on the poor little greenhorn, wondering 


Dit eT SS" aaa 


Sl EO SORE SS 


A MAN WANTED ME 189 


should he take pity on me. But before waiting for 
an answer, I snatched up a shovel from the stack and 
dug into the snow. At the end of that day, when I 
was paid a dollar, I felt the riches of all America in 
my hand. . : 

_ “This first money, I had to pay down for a week’s 
lodging. The next day, there was no more snow 
shovelling. I was hungry. I had to get work, and 
I didn’t know where. I just walked the streets, 
searching people’s faces, driven by hunger. Then I 
saw an old man struggling with his pushcart over the 
frozen snow. I rushed up to him, begging him with 
my eyes and my hands to let me help him. So he 
gave me the job to drive his pushcart and holler for 
him, ‘Pay cash clothes.’”’ 

“How could you manage the English words that 
first day?” I asked. 

A humorous twinkle leaped into Max’s eyes. 
*“That man knew as much about English asI. What 
I hollered was, ‘Pay cats coals.’ But my boss 
couldn’t tell the difference. To me it was only sing- 
ing a song. I didn’t understand the words, but my 
voice was like dynamite, thundering out into the air 
-all that was in my young heart, alone in a big city.” 

The rest of the story flowed on like magic. At the 
end of the week he was in business for himself. He 
cried the streets, ““Pay cats coals,” without even a 
pushcart. From all the windows, people began to 
look with wonder at the strange greenhorn singer.. 
Every day he came back to his lodging loaded full 


190 BREAD GIVERS 


with piles of old clothes. Ina month, he had enough 
money saved to start a little stand of second-hand 
clothes in Hester Street. 

“That day, I felt so happy with my riches that I 
danced and sang 1n front of my goods to make people 
come and buy,” he went on, “Such a free theatre as 
I gave them! Hester Street never saw and never 
heard such acting and dancing and singing in their 
whole life. 

“Then a man from the crowd came over and said, 
‘Young man, you’re too smart to waste yourself 
selling second-hand clothes in Hester Street. Ill 
make you for an actor. I'll give you twenty-five 
dollars a week to dance and sing on the stage in my 
theatre on Grand Street. UA 

And so for a while he became an actor and earned 
a lot of money. 

“But I began living a fast life, bumming around 
like a gay young feller with the women. One night, 


ee a 


after a drinking party, going out from an overheated 


place, I caught cold. It went worse till it turned 
into consumption. ‘The doctor told me I’d have to 
leave the stage and live outdoors if I wanted to save 
my life.” | 

A new chance to get on his feet came to him in 
California. In a town near Los Angeles, he started 
a little stand of imitation jewellery. So he saved up 
enough to open a small general store. And now, after 
a few years, it has grown to be the biggest depart- 
ment store in the village. 


A MAN WANTED ME I9I 


« Every step of his struggle to rise, he painted with 
such colourful pictures, it was like turning the pages 
of a wonder book right there with him. By the time 
he had finished his story, I had forgotten all about 
myself. I gazed up at him feeling like a tiny ant at the 
feet of a great lion. 

“Think, only, I never yet went inside a school or a 
college in America,’ he went on. ‘‘And I have 
American-born college men working for me as book- 
keepers and salesmen. I can hire them and fire 
them, as it wills itself in me. Because with all their 
college education they haven’t got the heads to make 
the money that I have.” 

I didn’t like this last boast of his. But I was so 
carried away by the man himself that I wasn’t aware 
how much [ didn’t like it. 

He began telling me of his real-estate investments 
that he had scattered all over Los Angeles. He pic- 
tured the wonders of this city of his. Bungalows full 
of sunshine and flowers. Roses growing in January. 
People living in the open all the year round. 

Suddenly, he looked straight at me. “Tell me,” 
he asked, “‘is it true what your sister said, that after 
working all day in the laundry you go to school at 
night? We've got to bring you to Los Angeles. 
There you'll get the roses back into your cheeks.” 

He seized my hand in a flow of sympathy and 
stroked the callous rough spots the laundry had 
stamped on them. ‘These hands should be playing 
the piano, not ironing clothes.” 


192.) BREAD GIVERS 


Finer than silk and velvet was the touch of his 
hand on mine. I wanted to hold myself back from 
him, but everything in me rushed out to him. 

*“‘Let’s go out,” he said. “Where shall I take 
your” | 

“Go on talking only.”’ 

**T talk enough all day, buying and selling. When 
I’m through with business I want to play and forget 
myself. How would you like a vaudeville show?” 

He put his strong hands under my elbows. Ina 
flash I was lifted out of my chair to my feet. That 
man was so full of compelling force when his eyes 
turned on me that I had to do what he wanted. ~ 

I found myself entering a vaudeville theatre. 
There was a chorus of dancing women. A disgusting- 
looking comedian with a false red nose wagged his 
finger and leered grossly at the shimmying shoulders. 
He was cracking jokes about the different women. 
And each time he came to the point of a joke, Max 
Goldstein clapped his hands and feet and shouted 
with laughter. 

“Why isn’t this funny to me? Am I so thick?” I 
asked myself. I felt like a mummy sitting there. 
At first I couldn’t help myself. When Max turned to 
me to share his enjoyment, I tried to smile, but inside 
I felt sort of sickened. Max saw that his hearty 
laughter at the show shocked me and pushed us 
apart. 

“Come on.” He patted me indulgently. “Tl 
take you to something more your kind.” 


A MAN WANTED ME 193 


He put me into a taxicab and whirled me uptown 
among the glittering electric lights of Broadway. 
We stopped in front of a highly lighted place. Loud 
strains of music poured out as a man in uniform 
swung open the door for us. I was frightened about 
going in at first. 

I thought it might be another foolishness like the 
vaudeville show. But the next moment I was in a 
dazzle of lights and bright coloured walls. The brass 
band lifted me fiercely out of myself and shook me 
to the roots. Crowds, what crowds of couples. 
Women’s white shoulders against men’s black coats. 
Women and men letting go toward each other, drunk 
with the fiery rhythm of jazz. 

Ach! Just to dance! To lose myself in the mad 
joy of the crowd. Whirl away wild and free from all 
worry and care. This was the life. Worth every- 
thing to taste such a moment of happiness! 

He took me into his open arms and off we went. 
Such a dancer as Max was! He glided over the floor, 
a thing of wings. Lostand forgotten wereall thoughts 
of lessons.. The joy of the dance burst loose the 
shut-in prisonerin me. I was a bird that had leaped 
out of her cage. Wild gladness sang in my veins, 
swept me up, up, away from this earth. 

*“‘T’ll say you’re some dancer!” cried Max, plump- 
ing me into a seat at one of the tables. “Say, you’ve 
come to life! I saw it was in you first sight off! But 
it’s one o'clock, little teacherin! You must be 
starved for supper.” 


194 BREAD GIVERS 


The very word one o’clock startled me. I sud- 
denly felt tired and beganto yawn. “Better take me 
home. I’ve never been out so late.” 

“Late?”? Max scoffed. “‘Our best good time 
will just begin.”’ 

““No—oh, no,” I insisted, “I’ve got to go home. I 
have work the next day.” 

His lips drooped sulkily as he looked into my eyes 
and saw the iron will in me. 

I felt his chill at the door and wondered whether 
he’d come back to see me again. “But I’m a person 
with a mind as much as he,” I said. “‘If there’s any- 
thing real, deep between us, he’ll come back. And 
if he doesn’t, I don’t want him.” 

I was too excited to sleep the few hours that were 
left of that night, after Max Goldstein left me. 

When I glanced at myself in the mirror, I was 
amazed at my shining face. I was laughing in my- 
self like one bewitched with happiness. 

Overnight I had become a changed person. The 
weight of ages that had burdened me down since I 
was a child had dropped away from me. Overnight 
youth burst loose in me. And all because of a man. 
A man who took me out for one night’s pleasure. A 
fierce desire for life was let loose in me. I had tasted 
pleasure. And it burned in me for mote, more. 

All day at the laundry, my head was flying away 
from me like a lost thing in the air. In the evening, 
I was wondering, should I be absent from school? 
Because I was too much on fire to come down to the 


A MAN WANTED ME | 195 


cold facts of lessons. And yet, I jollied myself that 
I didn’t want him to come till I could calm down, back 
to common sense. I told myself I wanted peace and 
quiet after so much high-flying pleasure. But all the 
time, a thin, needle-like craving in me was wishing 
and hoping and aching for him to come. And when 
his knock came at my door, wild gladness leaped up in 
me and I rushed to let him in. 

His eyes were dancing out of his head with happi- 
ness. He held a telegram in his hand which he waved 
in my face. 

“Just got this wire from my agent. People offer- 
ing me twenty thousand for a lot that I bought for 
five thousand. And think only! I wired back not 
to close the deal for less than fifty thousand. Real 
estate is booming in Los Angeles. ‘The biggest boom 
in all America.” 

And he went on pouring out to me all his get-rich- 
quick schemes that would turn him into a million- 
aire. Last night his adventures were new and 
interesting. But now again his talking only about 
himself and his business began to get on my nerves. 
Why don’t he ask how Iam? Why isn’t he interested 
in my school, my studies? Was the whole world only 
the boom, boom, boom, of his real-estate schemes? 

“Come, get ready, my little teacherin! To-night 
we'll go to the Grand Street Theatre.” 

‘I’m too tired after so much excitement last night. 
Wouldn’t you like better a quiet evening in the 
park?” 


196 BREAD GIVERS 


““Ach! I couldn’t sit still and be quiet five min- 
utes. T’vegottobeonthe go. I’ve got tosee things 
moving before my eyes. Excitement is like eating 
to me. In my town, I belong to about a dozen 
lodges. Every night I’m on the go to a different 
meeting.” 

‘Any one listening to you would think that lodge 
meetings and money-making are the beginning and 
the end of life.” 

“Sure thing. Money-making is the biggest game 
in America. At the lodge meetings I combine my 
business and my pleasure. It’s meeting people. 
Matching wits. If my luck keeps up, Ill have 
enough in a few years to sit back and live on my in- 
come.” | 

He jerked about restlessly, telling me again of all 
the real estate he owned and the lots he expected to 
sell, and those he sold at the beginning of his business 
career. His rushing torrent of money, money beat 
down on me till I suddenly felt worn out. But Max 
Goldstein took my hat and coat off my nail on the 
door and threw them at me playfully. “‘If you hurry, 
we ll have time enough to go to the restaurant before 
the show.” 

“I’m no excitement eater like you.” 

“Ach! You talk just like an old maid. You 
ought to get out into the world. Then you’d wake 


up.” 
I stared at him, hurt, frightened. Am I an old 


maid? I set my teeth to hold back the bitter 


A MAN WANTED ME 197 


thoughts crowding in my throat. How I hated 


eee tle and? br) No. s Nos os oT 
shivered at the thought of it. . . . It could 
never be—he and I. Never. . . . Then sud- 


denly he became aware of my silence. 

“Come, come.” He put his hand over mine and 
stroked my fingers. His touch was like magic. 
Feelings from under the earth blazed up in me. I 
pulled my hand away, in fear of this power he had 
over me. 

“Tl tell you the truth, I like you more because 
you're independent. There’s a magnet inside of you. 
It pulls me out of my senses. What’s happening 
to mef You're so different. You’re so _ cold. 
‘You're only books, books, books. I sometimes won- 
der, are you at alla woman? And yet youset meon 
fire.” ’ 

His eyes burned into mine. The next moment he 
was like a child begging for affection. In a daze, I 
followed him. 

I found myself sitting opposite him, at a little table 
in a restaurant. The music. The lights. He and 
I, alone together, in a corner all by ourselves. The 
very air fanned the rush of feeling between us. | 

“What shall I order for you, little heart ?”’ 

“Anything! anything—you order.” My hand 
ached to touch the curly head bent toward me across 
the table. 

Food came. But I was too bewildered to know 
what I was eating. His eyes, his voice, the near- 


198 BREAD GIVERS 


ness of him swept me out of myself with joy and 
longing. 

With what innocent delight he watched me puc 
every bite in my mouth. “Eat, darling, get a little 
fat on you.” He poured sunlight over me with 
every breath. What did anything matter except 
this irresistible gladness that drew us toward each 
other? 

Every evening next week he came to seeme. One 
moment I loved him; the next moment I tried to re- 
sist him, wanted to be free of him. One moment he 
would say something that would rise up like a sword 
between us, pushing us apart; and then, at the touch 
of his hand, the look of his eyes, I forgot all his faults. 
My one need of needs, stronger than my life, was my 
love to be loved. 

One evening, he was content to stay with me, in 
my room. I read to him a story, ““The Pavilion on 
the Links.” How delighted I was by the thoughtful 
face that listened to every word. So, at last, I got 
him excited about something outside of business. 
Love had opened this new soul in him. With anew 
feeling of closeness to him, my eyes looked into his 
as I shut the book. 

“Finished?” he cried, eagerly. “You looked so 
beautiful while you were reading to me! Just like a 
picture! Now, listen to business, darling. Ive 
been figuring out that I’d better cinch that offer of 
twenty thousand for my property. My agents are 
holding up the deal till I come.” 


A MAN WANTED ME 199 


_ God! So this was in his head when I thought he 
listened with such whole-hearted interest to my story! 
For the first time since I met him, I could see where 
he belonged. In silence, I looked at him, wondering 
how I could have been so carried away by a man who 
was such a stranger to me. 

The only thing that keeps me here is you, golden 
heart.” He took my hand in both his own. “The 
first look I gave at you, I knew you were for me 

I know I’m a good catch. No wonder all 
kinds of women are after me’; he went on praising 
himself, as if he were goods for sale. “‘But I’m such 
a crazy, 1 want what I want, and I want you. So 
what do you say!” 

He shoved aside the books that piled my table. 

“What for should you waste your time yet with 
school any more? You're smart enough the way you 
are. Only dumbheads fool themselves that educa- 
tion and colleges and all that sort of nonsense will 
push them on in the world. It’s money that makes 
the wheels go round. With my money I can have 
college graduates working for me, for my agents, my 
bookkeepers, my lawyers. I can hire them and fire 
them. And they, with all their education, are under 
my feet, just because I got the money.”’ 

The man seemed to turn into a talking roll of 
dollar bills right there before my eyes. His smile. 
He could buy everything. That’s what laughed in 
his eyes. He could buy everything. To him, a wife 
would only be another piece of property. I grew 


200 BREAD GIVERS — 


cold at the thought how near I had been to marrying 
him. 

A great calmness came over me. We were so far 
apart, it was as if someone else was talking for me. 
“I’m only happy alone. You were right once. I 
am an old maid.” | 

For a long time, after Max left, I could not tear 
my eyes away from the chair where he had sat, from 
the spot on the floor that his feet had touched. 

Max wanted to marry me. Me he wanted. 
Me. 

I turned to the mirror and saw myself with new 
wonder. ‘There was a glow in my face that was never 
there before. Gone was that vague gaze at nothing. 
My eyes had grown bigger and darker. They had 
become seeing eyes. I had seen and felt. I had 
tasted and known. And it shone there, in my eyes, 
and surged through my arms and fingers. I touched 
the hand he had touched, my face, my neck. There 
was a feel like new velvet on my skin. I knew now 
the meaning of a certain inner smile that I used to 
see in certain women’s eyes. I felt that same smile 
in me. My head went up with a new pride. I had 
an assurance that I never had before. I was thrilled. 
Flattered. Ripened for love. 

Then why did I let him go? 

Hours I sat there, my head in my hands, wondering 
why. Slowly, one piece of a broken thought began 
to weave itself together with another. If I'd let 
myself love him, I’d end by hating him. He only 


ee ee ee 


> a 


—- Ia 


‘A MAN WANTED ME 201 


excited me. But that wasn’t enough. Even in the 
ecstasy of our kisses, I knew he was not my kind. 

I looked at the books on my table that had stared 
at me like enemies a little while before. They were 
again the life of my life. Ach! Nothing was so 
beautiful as to learn, to know, to master by the sheer 
force of my will even the dead squares and triangles 
of geometry. I seized my books and hugged them 
to my breast as though they were living things. 


CHAPTER XV 


ON AND ON-—-ALONE 


SUDDEN longing to see my father came over 
me. I felt that my refusal to marry Max 


Goldstein was something he could under- 
stand. He had given up worldly success to drink the 
wisdom of the Torah. He would tell me that, after 
all, I was the only daughter of his faith. I had lived 
the old, old story which he had drilled into our child- 
hood ears—the story of Jacob and Esau. I had it 
from Father, this ingrained something in me that 
would not let me take the mess of pottage. 

For the whole day after, I thought of Father. If 
I only could talk myself out to him. Now, I could 
love and understand him from afar as I had once 
hated him and could not bear him when near. | 
had broken away from him as a child only to be 
drawn to him now, in my great spiritual need, as a 
person is drawn to a person. 

Some of his preachings came back to me: “Can 
fire and water live together? Neither can Godliness 
and an easy life.” How rich with the sap of centuries 
were his words of wisdom! I never knew the mean- 
ing of his sayings when I had to listen to him at home. 

202 


a 


ON AND ON—ALONE 203 


But now it came over me like half-remembered, far- 
off songs, like music and poetry. 

When I came back from work, I had a great urge 
to drop everything and take the train to Elizabeth 
and rush home to see him. Never since I was born 
did I feel such a great need for him and his wiser- 
than-the-world kind of wisdom. 

I still remember how I sat there in my room glued 
to my chair instead of jumping up to take the train 
as I wanted todo. Something was holding me back. 
And I always wondered whether it wasn’t my instinct 
that he was even then coming down the block to me. 
He seemed coming closer and closer to me. And I 
was scarcely surprised, but only thrilled and happy, 
when I heard the familiar stamping of his feet. It 
was like the answering of a prayer, to see before my 
eyes my door open and my father standing there like 
a picture out of the Bible. 

Had a miracle happened? My father come to see 
me? Inarush of gladness words from Isaiah flashed 
before me as in letters of fire: “‘I will join the hearts 
of the parents and the children.”’ 

Never had there been any show of feeling between 
Father and us children. Only once a year, on the 
Day of Atonement, he put his hands over our heads 
to bless us. Now, as I looked at him, he seemed to 
me like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Solomon, and David, all 
joined together in the one wise old face. And this 
man with all the ancient prophets shining out of his 
eyes—my father. 


204. BREAD GIVERS 


I longed to rush forward and fling my arms around 
his neck. “Father,” I cried. And then my voice 
stopped. For I suddenly became aware of his cold, 
hard glance on me. 

“Ts it true what Max Goldstein said?” His eyes 
glared. “Is it true you refused him?” _ 

My heart stopped. I just stared at him. Not a 
word could force itself out of my tight throat. 

“Answer me! Answer me!’ His voice grew 
louder and harsher. 

“Tt wasn’t the real love,’ I stammered, hardly 
aware what I was saying. 

‘Love you want yet? What do you know about 
love? How could any man love a lawless, con- 
scienceless thing like you? I never dreamed that a 
decent man would want to marry you. You had a 
chance to make a good ending to a bad play, and you 
push away such a luck match with your own hands. 
I always knew you were crazy. Now I see you're 
your worst enemy.” 

All I could feel was the hurt of his beating me 
down. Just as I looked to Father for love, he rose up 
to stone me. 

“This was the one chance of your life. Another 
chance to marry will never come to you. There are 
plenty of nicer girls than you. Younger, more 
beautiful. Home girls, those are the girls men want. 
What have you to show off to a man? The shame 
and disgrace that you heaped upon your old father? 


ON AND ON—ALONE 205 


A lawless daughter makes a lawless wife. No man 
wants to marry a girl who runs away from her 
home.” 

Rage flamed from his eyes as he thundered at me, 
stamping his feet. “Pfui on your education! What’s 
going to be your end? A dried-up old maid? You 
think you can make over the world? You think 
millions of educated old maids like you could change 
the world one inch? Woe to America where women 
are let free like men. All that’s false in politics, 
prohibition, and all the evils of the world come from 
them.” 

T no longer saw my father before me, but a tyrant 
from the Old World where only men were people. 
To him I was nothing but his last unmarried daughter 
to be bought and sold. Even in my revolt I could 
not keep back a smile. 

“It’s no use talking to you. I see to my sorrow 
that my words won’t help you. He who loses his 
understanding is like one spiritually sick. Right is 
wrong to him and wrong is right. It says in the 
Torah: What’sawomanwithoutaman? Lessthan 
nothing—a blotted-out existence. No life on earth 
and no hope of Heaven.”’ 

He drew himself back like a deposed king who had 
been wounded and dishonoured. ‘There was a hurt, 
a sorrow in his eyes that hurt me and made me weak 
with guilt against him. 

“It bleeds in me my heart when I see how you’re 


206 BREAD GIVERS 


digging your own ruin and you won't listen to my 
warning. After all, you’re my child, flesh of my 
flesh, blood of my blood.” 

My God! I am flesh of his flesh and blood of his 
blood. Why can’t he understand me? Why don’t 
we understand each other? Full of bitterness, I 
cried to him: ‘“‘What do you want from me? Why 
do you torture me?” 

“My child,” he pleaded, “hear me. I’m an old 
man. I lived longer than you. I know what’s 
good for you better than you know. Look around 
you. Nothing in nature lives by itself alone. 
Every tree has its little branch. Every branch has 
its little flower. God put people on earth to get 
married and have children yet. It says in the Torah, 
Breed and multiply. A woman’s highest happiness is 
to be a man’s wife, the mother of a man’s children. 
You’re not a person at all. What do you make from 
yourself? Why do you hold yourself better than the 
whole world? You hide yourself from _ people. 
Never go anywhere. Never see any one. Who ever 
heard of such madness? You're worse than an 
animal. Even animals live with one another. 
The birds in the air, the fishes in the sea, even 
the littlest worms under the stone need their own 
kind to fulfil themselves. You'll rot away by your- 
self.” 

Why does he throw yet salt on my wounds? The 
nails of my fingers dug into my palms trying to con- 
trol myself. Why can’t he see how my whole being 


ON AND ON—ALONE 207 


cried out for love, for sympathy, for the living breath 
of any kind of people? 

Father!’ I burst out. “I want love. Id give 
my life away to love and be loved. I want a home, 
a husband and children. But “1 

“But Max Goldstein, such a golden young man, 
he isn’t good enough for you yet? You're yet blow- 
ing from yourself? Who do you think you are? 
Whom do you want? The President of America, 
maybe?”’ 

I saw there was no use talking. He could never 
understand. He was the Old World. I was the 
New. 

“I give you up!’ He spat his rage in my face. 
**You’re without character, without morals, without 
religion. What use are you to yourself or to the 
world? When you'll die, they’ll bury you in Potter’s 
Field, among all the bums and outcasts of America.” 

“TI have to live and die by what’s in me,”’ I said, 
dully. “Preaching don’t change me. Why don’t 
you let me alone?” 

“Wait! You'll see your bitter end when you'll 
begin to grow older. I warn you, your terrible sel- 
fishness ay 

** All my selfishness is from you.” I was stung at 
last to hitting back at him. ‘“‘What have you ever 
done for your wife and children but crush them 
and break them? I ran away from home because [ 
hated you. I couldn’t bear the sight of you.” 

“Schlang! ‘Toad! Wild animal! Thing of evil! 


208 BREAD GIVERS 


How came you ever to be my child? I disown you. 
I curse you. May your name and your memory be 
blotted out of this earth.” 

He rushed from me, slamming the door, a defeated 
prophet, a Jeremiah to whom the people would not 
listen. 

I knew now that | wasalone. I had to give up the 
dreams of any understanding from Father as I had 
to give up the longing for love from Max Goldstein. 
Those two experiences made me clear to myself. 
Knowledge was what I wanted more than anything 
else in the world. I had made my choice. And now 
I had to pay the price. So this is what it cost, daring 
to follow the urge in me. No father. No lover. 
No family. No friend. I must go on and on. 
And I must go on—alone. 


CHAPTER XVI 


COLLEGE 


HAT burning day when I got ready to leave 

: New York and start out on my journey to 

college! I felt like Columbus starting out 
for the other end of the earth. I felt like the pilgrim 
fathers who had left their homeland and all their 
kin behind them and trailed out in search of the 
New World. 

I had stayed up night after night, washing and 
ironing, patching and darning my things. At last, 
I put them all together in a bundle, wrapped them 
up with newspapers, and tied them securely with the 
thick clothes line that I had in my room on which to 
hang out my wash. I made another bundle of my 
books. In another newspaper I wrapped up my 
food for the journey: a loaf of bread, a herring, and a 
pickle. In my purse was the money | had been 
saving from my food, from my clothes, a penny to 
penny, a dollar to a dollar, for so many years. It 
was not much but I counted out that it would be 
enough for my train ticket and a few weeks start 
till I got work out there. 

It was only when I got to the train that I realized 
I had hardly eaten all day. Starving hungry, I tore 


209 


210 BREAD GIVERS 

the paper open. Ach! Crazy-head! In my haste 
I had forgotten even to cut up the bread. I bent 
over on the side of my seat, and half covering myself 
with a newspaper, | pinched pieces out of the loaf 
and ripped ravenously at the herring. With each 
bite, I cast side glances like a guilty thing; nobody 
should see the way I ate. 

After a while, as the lights were turned low, the 
other passengers began to nod their heads, each 
outsnoring the other in their thick sleep. I was the 
only one on the train too excited to close my eyes. 

Like a dream was the whole night’s journey. And 
like a dream mounting on a dream was this college 
town, this New America of culture and education. 

Before this, New York was all of America to me. 
But now I came to a town of quiet streets, shaded 
with green trees. No crowds, no tenements. No 
hurrying noise to beat the race of the hours. Only a 
leisured quietness whispered in the air: Peace. 
Be still. Eternal time is all before you. 

Each house had its own green grass in front, its 
own free space all around, and it faced the street 
with the calm security of being owned for genera- 
tions, and not rented by the month from a landlord. 
In the early twilight, it was like a picture out of 
fairyland to see people sitting on their porches, 
lazily swinging in their hammocks, or watering their 
own growing flowers. 

So these are the real Americans, I thought, thrilled 
by the lean, straight bearing of the passers-by. 


COLLEGE 211 


They had none of that terrible fight for bread and 
rent that I always saw in New York people’s eyes. 
Their faces were not worn with the hunger for things 
they never could have in their lives. There was in 
them that sure, settled look of those who belong to 
the world in which they were born. 

The college buildings were like beautiful palaces. 
The campus stretched out like fields of a big park. 
Air—air. Free space and sunshine. ‘The river at 
dusk. Glimmering lights on passing boats, the 
floating voices of young people. And when night 
came, there were the sky and the stars. 

This was the beauty for which I had always longed. 
For the first few days I could only walk about and 
drink it in thirstily, more and more. Beauty of 
houses, beauty of streets, beauty shining out of the 
calm faces and cool eyes of the people! Oh—too 
cool. 

How could I most quickly become friends with 
them? How could [I come into their homes, ex- 
change with them my thoughts, break with them 
bread at their tables? If I could only lose myself 
body and soul in the serenity of this new world, the 
hunger and the turmoil of my ghetto years would 
drop away from me, and I, too, would know the 
beauty of stillness and peace. 

What light-hearted laughing youth met my eyes! 
All the young people I had ever seen were shut up 
in factories. But here were young girls and young 
men enjoying life, free from the worry for a living. 


nee BREAD GIVERS 


College to them was being out for a good time, like 
to us in the shop a Sunday picnic. ~But in our gayest 
Sunday picnics there was always the under-feeling 
that Monday meant back to the shop again. To 
these born lucky ones joy seemed to stretch out for 
ever. 

What a sight I was in my gray pushcart clothes 
against the beautiful gay colours and the fine things 
those young girls wore. I had seen cheap, fancy 
style, Five- and Ten-Cent Store finery. But never 
had I seen such plain beautifulness. The simple 
skirts and sweaters, the stockings and shoes to 
match. ‘The neat finished quietness of their tailored 
suits. [here was no show-off in their clothes, and 
yet how much more pulling to the eyes and all the 
senses than the Grand Street richness I knew. 

And the spick-and-span cleanliness of these people! 
It smelled from them, the soap and the bathing. 
Their fingernails so white and pink. Their hands 
and necks white like milk. I wondered how did 
those girls get their hair so soft, so shiny, and so 
smooth about their heads. Even their black shoes 
had a clean look. 

Never had I seen men so all shaved up with pink, 
clean skins. The richest store-keepers in Grand 
Street shined themselves up with diamonds like 
walking jewellery stores, but they weren’t so holler- 
ing clean as these men. And they all had their hair 
clipped so short; they all had a shape to their heads. 
So ironed out smooth and even they looked in their 


COLLEGE 213 


spotless, creaseless clothes, as if the dirty battle of 
life had never yet been on them. 

I looked at these children of joy with a million 
eyes. I looked at them with my hands, my feet, 
with the thinnest nerves of my hair. By all their 
differences from me, their youth, their shiny fresh- 
ness, their carefreeness, they pulled me out of my 
senses to them. And they didn’t even know I was 
there. | 

I thought once I got into the classes with them, 
they’d see me and we’d get to know one another. 
What a sharp awakening came with my first hour! 

As I entered the classroom, I saw young men 
and girls laughing and talking to one another with- 
out introductions. I looked for my seat. Then I 
noticed, up in front, a very earnest-faced young 
man with thick glasses over his sad eyes. He made 
me think of Morris Lipkin, so I chose my seat next 
to him. 

**What’s the name of the professor?’ I asked. 

**Smith,”” came from his tight lips. He did not 
even look at me. He pulled himself together and 
began busily writing, to show.me he didn’t want to 
be interrupted. 

I turned to the girl on my other side. What a 
fresh, clean beauty! A creature of sunshine. And 
clothes that matched her radiant youth. 

“Is this the freshman class in geometry?” I asked 
her. 

She nodded politely and smiled. But how quickly 


214 BREAD GIVERS 


her eyes sized me up! It was not an unkind glance. 
And yet, it said more plainly than words, “From 
where do you come? How did you get in here?” 

Sitting side by side with them through the whole 
hour, I felt stranger to them than if I had passed 
them in Hester Street. Wasn’t there some secret 
something that would open us toward one another? 

In one class after another, I kept asking myself, 
*“What’s the matter with me? Why do they look at 
me so when [ talk with them?” 

Maybe I’d have to change myself inside and out to 
be one of them. But how? 

The lectures were over at four o’clock. With a 
sigh, I turned from the college building, away from 
the pleasant streets, down to the shabby back alley 
near the post office, and entered the George Martin 
Hand Laundry. 

Mr. Martin was a fat, easy-going, good-natured 
man. I no sooner told him of my experience in 
New York than he took me on at once as an ironer at 
fifty cents an hour, and he told me he had work for as 
many hours a day as I could put in. 

I felt if I could only look a little bit like other 
girls on the outside, maybe I could get in with them. 
And that meant money! And money meant work, 
work, work! 

Till eleven o’clock that night, I ironed fancy white 
shirtwaists. 

““You’re some busy little worker, even if I do say 


COLLEGE 215 


so,” said Mr. Martin, good-naturedly. “But I 
must lock up. You can’t live here.” 

I went home, aching in every bone. And in the 
quiet and good air, I so overslept that I was late for 
my first class. To make matters worse, I found a 
note in my mailbox that puzzled and frightened me. 
It said, “Please report at once to the dean’s office to 
explain your absence from Physical Education I, at 
four o’clock.”’ 

A line of other students was waiting there. When 
my turn came I[ asked the secretary, “‘What’s this 
physical education business?” 

“This is a compulsory course,” he said. “You 
cannot get credit in any other course unless you 
satisfy this requirement.” 

At the hour when I had intended to go back to 
Martin’s Laundry, I entered the big gymnasium. 
There were a crowd of girls dressed in funny short 
black bloomers and rubber-soled shoes. 

The teacher blew the whistle and called harshly, 
“Students are expected to report in their uniforms.”’ 

“I have none.” 

“They're to be obtained at the bookstore,’ she 
said, with a stern look at me. “Please do not re- 
port again without it.” 

I stood there dumb. 

“Well, stay for to-day and exercise as you are,’ 
said the teacher, taking pity on me. 

She pointed out my place in the line, where I had 


> 


216 BREAD GIVERS. 


to stand with the rest like a lot of wooden soldiers. 
She made us twist ourselves around here and there, 
“Right face!” ‘‘Left face!’ ‘‘Right about face!” 
I tried to do as the others did, but I felt like a 
jumping-jack being pulled this way and that way. 
I picked up dumbbells and pushed them up and down ~ 
and sideways until_my arms were lame. ‘Then she 
made us hop around like a lot of monkeys. 

At the end of the hour, I was so out of breath that 
I sank down, my heart pounding against my ribs. 
I was dripping with sweat worse than Saturday night 
in the steam laundry. What’s all this physical 
education nonsense? I came to college to learn 
something, to get an education with my head, and 
not monkeyshines with my arms and legs. 

I went over to the instructor. “How much an 
hour do we get for this work?” I asked her, bitterly. 

She looked at me with a stupid stare. ‘This is a 
two-point course.” 

Now I got real mad. “I’ve got to sweat my life 
away enough only to earn a living,” I cried. ‘God 
knows I exercised enough, since I was a kid 4 

“You properly exercised?’ She looked at me 
from head to foot. “Your posture is bad. Your 
shoulders sag. You need additional corrective ex- 
ercises outside the class.”’ 

More tired than ever, I came to the class next day. 
After the dumbbells, she made me jump over the 
hurdles. For the life of me, I couldn’t do it. I 
bumped myself and scratched my knees on the top 


COLLEGE 217 


bar of the hurdle, knocking it over with a great clat- 
ter. They all laughed except the teacher. 

*“Repeat the exercise, please,” she said, with a 
- frozen face. 

I was all bruises, trying to do it. And they were 
holding their sides with laughter. I was their clown, 
and this was their circus. And suddenly, I got so 
wild with rage that I seized the hurdle and right 
before their eyes I smashed it to pieces. 

The whole gymnasium went still as death. 

The teacher’s face was white. ‘“‘Report at once 
to the dean.” 

The scared look on the faces of the girls made me 
feel that I was to be locked up or fired. 

For a minute when I entered the dean’s grand 
office, I was so confused I[ couldn’t even see. 

He rose and pointed to a chair beside his desk. 
**What can I do for you?” he asked, in a voice that 
quieted me as he spoke. 

I told him how mad I was, to have piled on me 
jumping hurdles when I was so tired anyway. He 
regarded me with that cooling steadiness of his. 
When I was through, he walked to the window and 
I waited, miserable. Finally he turned to me 
again, and with a smile! “I’m quite certain that 
physical education is not essential in your case. I 
will excuse you from attending the course.” 

After this things went better with me. In spite 
of the hard work in the laundry, I managed to get 
along in my classes. More and more interesting 


218 BREAD GIVERS 


became the life of the college as I watched it from 
the outside. 

What a feast of happenings each day of college 
was to those other students. Societies, dances, 
letters from home, packages of food, midnight spreads 
and even birthday parties. I never knew that there 
were people glad enough of life to celebrate the day 
they were born. I watched the gay goings-on around 
me like one coming to a feast, but always standing 
back and only looking on. 

One day, the ache for people broke down my feel- 
ings of difference from them. I felt | must tear my- 
self out of my aloneness. Nothing had ever come 
to me without my going out after it. I had to fight 
for my living, fight for every bit of my education. 
Why should I expect friendship and love to come to 
me out of the air while I sat there, dreaming about it? 

The freshman class gave a dance that very eve- 
ning. Something in the back of my head told me 
that an evening dress and slippers were part of going 
toadance. I had nosuchthings. But should that 
stop me? If I had waited till I could afford the right 
clothes for college, I should never have been able to 
go at all. 

I put a fresh collar over my old serge dress. And 
with a dollar stolen from my eating money, I 
bought a ticket to the dance. As I peeped into the 
glittering gymnasium, blaring with jazz, my timid 
fears stopped the breath in me. How the whole big 
place sang with their light-hearted happiness! 


COLLEGE 219 


Young eyes drinking joy from young eyes. Girls, 
like gay-coloured butterflies, whirling in the arms of 
young men. 

Floating ribbons and sashes shimmered against 
men’s black coats. J took the nearest chair, blinded 
by the dazzle of the happy couples. Why did I 
come here? A terrible sense of age weighed upon 
me; yet I watched and waited for someone to come 
and ask me to dance. But not one man came near 
me. Some of my classmates nodded distantly in 
passing, but most of them were too filled with their 
own happiness even to see me. 

The whirling of joy went on and on, and still I 
sat there watching, cold, lifeless, like a lost ghost. 
I was nothing and nobody. It was worse than being 
ignored. Worse than being an outcast. I simply 
didn’t belong. I had no existence in their young 
eyes. I wanted to run and hide myself, but fear and 
pride nailed me against the wall. 

A chaperon must have noticed my face, and she 
brought over one of those clumsy, backward youths 
who was lost in a corner by himself. How unwilling 
were his feet as she dragged him over! In a dull 
voice, he asked, “May I have the next dance?” his 
eyes fixed in the distance as he spoke. 

“Thank you. I don’t want to dance.” And I 
fled from the place. 

I found myself walking in the darkness of the cam- 
pus. In the thick shadows of the trees I hid myself 
and poured out my shamed and injured soul to the 


220 BREAD GIVERS 


night. So, it wasn’t character or brains that counted. 
Only youth and beauty and clothes—things I never 
had and never could have. Joy and love were not 
for such as me. Why not? Why not? 

I flung myself on the ground, beating with my 
fists against the endless sorrows of my life. Even in — 
college I had not escaped from the ghetto. Here 
loneliness hounded me even worse than in Hester 
Street. Was there no escape? Will I never lift 
myself to be a person among people? 

I pressed my face against the earth. All that was 
left of me reached out in prayer. God! I’ve gone so 
far, help me to go on. God! I don’t know how, 
but I must go on. Help me not to want their little 
happiness. I have wanted their love more than my 
life. Help me be bigger than this hunger in me. 
Give me the love that can live without love. 

Darkness and stillness washed over me: Slowly 
I stumbled to my feet and looked up at the sky. 
The stars in their infinite peace seemed to pour 
their healing light into me. I thought of the captives 
in prison, the sick and the suffering from the begin- 
ning of time who had looked to these stars for 
strength. What was my little sorrow to the cen- 
turies of pain which those stars had watched? So 
near they seemed, so compassionate. My bitter 
hurt seemed to grow small and drop away. If I 
must go on alone, I should still have silence and the 
high stars to walk with me. 


* * * a * * *% i 


COLLEGE 221 


Never before or since in all my life had I worked 
as hard as during that first term. I was not only 
earning a living and getting an education, I was 
trying to break into this new college world. 

Every week, I saved a bit more for a little some- 
thing in my appearance—a brush for the hair, a 
pair of gloves, a pair of shoes with stockings to 
match. And now I began to work still longer hours 
to save up for a plain felt hat like those college 
gitls wore. And the result of my wanting to dress 
up was that I was too tired to master my hardest 
subject. In January, the blow fell. On the bulletin 
board, where everybody could see, my name was 
posted as failing in geometry. It meant taking the 
course all over again. And something still worse. 
Two weeks later, the bursar sent me a bill for the 
same old geometry course. 

I hurried to his office and pushed myself in ahead 
of the line of waiting students. “I want my money 
back for the geometry course that you didn’t teach 
me,’ I cried. “I paid to learn, not to fail.” 

The man gaped at me for a moment as if I had 
gone mad and then paid no more attention to me. 
His indifference got me into such a rage that I could 
have broken through the cage and shaken him. But 
I remembered the smashed hurdle and the kind 
dean. With an effort, I got hold of myself and went 
to this more understanding man. 

“TI didn’t smash any hurdles, but I’m ane to 
smash the world. Why should I pay the college 


222 BREAD GIVERS 


for something I didn’t get?’ And then I told him 
how they wanted to cheat me. 

This time, even the dean did not understand. 
And I had no new hat that winter. ! 

I flung myself into the next term’s work with a 
fierce determination to wring the last drop of knowl- 
edge from each course. At first, psychology was 
like Greek to me. So many words about words. 
*‘ Apperception,”’ “reflex arc,” “‘inhibitions.”” What 
had all that fancy book language to do with the real, 
plain every day? 

Then, one day, Mr. Edman said to the class: 
“‘Give an example from your own experience show- 
ing how anger or any strong emotion interferes with 
your thinking?” 

Suddenly, it dawned on me. I jumped to my feet 
with excitement. I told him about Zalmon the 
fish-peddler. Once I saw him get so mad at a woman 
for wanting to bargain down a penny on a pound of 
fish that in his anger he threw a dollar’s worth of 
change at her. 

In a flash, so many sleeping things in my life woke 
up in me. I remembered the time I was so crazy 
for Morris Lipkin. How I had poured out all my 
feelings without sense. That whole picture of my 
first mad love sprang before my eyes like a new rev- 
elation, and I cried, ‘“‘No wonder they say, ‘All 
lovers are fools’! 

Everybody laughed. But my anger did not get 


COLLEGE 223 


the better of me now. I had learned self-control. 
T was now a person of reason. 

From that day on, the words of psychology were 
full of living wonder. In a few weeks I was ahead 
of any one else in the class. I saw the students 
around me as so many pink-faced children who 
never had had to live yet. I realized that the time 
when I sold herring in Hester Street, I was learning 
life more than if I had gone to school. 

The fight with Father to break away from home, 
the fight in the cafeteria for a piece of meat—when I 
went through those experiences I thought them pri- 
vations and losses; now I saw them treasure chests 
of insight. What countless riches lay buried under 
the ground of those early years that I had thought so 
black, so barren, so thwarted with want! 

Before long, I had finished the whole textbook of 
psychology. 

“Tm through with the book,’ I said to Mr. 
Edman. “Please give me more work. I’ve got to 
keep my head going.” 

He gave me a list of references. And I was so 
excited with the first new book that I stayed up half 
the night reading it on and on. I could hardly wait 
for the class to show Mr. Edman all I had learned. 
After the lecture, I hastened to his desk. 

“I’m all ready to recite on this new book,” I 
cried, as I handed it to him. 

“Recite?”” He looked puzzled. 


224 BREAD GIVERS 


“Ask me any questions. See only how much I’ve 
just learned.”’ 

“1’m late to a class right now. I’m busy with lec- 
tures all day long.” 

“If you’re busy all day, Pll come to you in the 
evening. Where do you live?” 

He drew back and stared at me. “I’m glad to tell 
you what to read,” he said, stiffly. “‘But I have no 
time for recitations outside of class hours. I’m too 


God! How his indifference cut me! ‘Too busy!” 
The miser. Here I come to him hungry, starving— 
come begging for one little crumb of knowledge! 
And he has it all—and yet pushes me back with, 
**T’m too busy!” 

How I had dreamed of college! The inspired com- 
panionship of teachers who are friends! The high 
places above the earth, where minds are fired by 
minds. And what’s this place I’ve come to? Was 
the college only a factory, and the teachers machines 
turning out lectures by the hour on wooden dummies, 
incapable of response? Was there no time for the 
flash from eye to eye, from heart to heart? Was that 
vanishing spark of light that flies away quicker than 
it came unless it is given life at the moment by the 
kindling breath of another mind—was that to be 
shoved aside with, “I’m too busy. I have no time 
for recitations outside class hours’’? 

A few days later, I saw Mr. Edman coming out 


hurriedly from Philosophy Hall. Oh, if I could only 


COLLEGE 225 


ask him about that fear inhibition I had read about. 
How it would clear my mind to talk i it over with him 
for only a minute. But he’d maybe be too busy to 
even glance at me. 

“How do you do, Miss Smolinsky!’ He smiled 
and stopped ashe saw me. ‘“‘How are you getting on 
with those references I gave you?” 

My whole heart leaped up in gratitude. ‘Oh, 
perhaps | bothered you too much.” 

““No bother at all. I only wish I had mote time.” 

That very evening I overheard two tired-looking 
instructors in the college cafeteria. 

“Maybe I was a fool to take this job. No sweat- 
shop labour is so underpaid as the college instructor.” 

“How do they expect usto live? I get a thousand 
dollars a year and I teach sixteen periods a week.” 

“And look at Edman. He teaches eighteen 
periods and his pay is no more than ours.” 

Sothat was it! And I had thought I hated Mr. 
Edman for being so aloof, so stingy with his time. 
Now I understood how overworked and overdriven he 
was. How much he had taught me in that one little 
class! What a marvellous teacher he was! Ach! 
If one could only meet such a man outside of class, 
how the whole world would open up and shine with 
light! 

Summer came. And when the others went home 
for their vacation I found a canning factory near 
the town. And all summer I worked, stringing 
beans, shelling peas, pulling berries. I worked as 


226 BREAD GIVERS 


long hours as in the New York laundry. But here, 
it was in sheds full of air. 

And as I worked, I thought of Mr. Edman and all 
he had taught me. His course in psychology had 
opened to me a new world of reason and “‘objec- 
tivity.” Through him, I had learned to think 
logically for the first time in my life. 

Till now, I lived only by blind instinct and feeling. 
I might have remained for ever an over-emotional 
lunatic. This wider understanding of life, this new 
power of logic and reason I owe to Mr. Edman. 

How could I ever have been so crazy for a little 
bit of a poet like Lipkin? If I worshipped Mr. Ed- 
man, there would be some reason in my worship. 
Edman is not a silly poet like Lipkin. He 1s a 
thinker, a scientist. Through him I have gained 
this impersonal, scientific attitude of mind. 

I returned to college a week before the new term 
started. I went to the post office to buy some 
stamps. There was Mr. Edman! He was giving 
the postman his new address. Tanned with the 
summer sun, he looked more wonderful, more dis- 
tinguished than ever. “Eighteen Bank Street.”’ 
The words burned themselves into me. ‘‘ Eighteen 
Bank Street.” So that’s where Mr. Edman lived. 

Turning from the postman, he looked up and saw 
me. 

“Hello! What have you been doing?” was his 
friendly greeting. 

“Working in a canning factory. But my head 


COLLEGE 227 


was going over and over everything you taught 
me.” 

*That’s splendid,” he smiled. ‘I’m glad to find a 
student who takes psychology so seriously.” 

How kind, how wonderful he was!. For a long 
time after he went away, I could only look and look 
after him. How that little bit of friendliness had 
changed the world for me! How I could be filled to 
the brim with happiness by the sound of a voice, 
the smile of a face! 

Before I knew how or why, I found myself walking 
up and down the sidewalk of the house marked 
Eighteen Bank Street. 

All at once I noticed the sign, “Room To Let.” 

My heart gave a sudden jump. I stopped still, 
almost without breath. Then I walked up the steps 
and rang the bell. | 

“May I see the room to let?’ I asked of the wo- 
man who opened the door. 

She led me up to the third-story hall bedroom. It 
was a dollar a week more than I could afford to pay. 
But even if [ had to starve, I had to rent that room. 
What matter if my body starved as long as my soul 
would be fed! | 

‘All my roomers are from college,” she said, as I 
paid her a week’s rent in advance. ‘‘Miss Porter, 
the art teacher, has my front parlour. And right 
below you is Mr. Edman, the teacher of psychology.” 

And people doubt that there’s a God on earth that 
orders all the events of our lives? Why was I so 


228 BREAD GIVERS 


driven to get an education? Why did I’ pick out 
this college of all colleges? Was it not because here 
was the man who had the knowledge that I had been 
seeking all my years? 

That very afternoon, I moved in. On the way up 
the stairs, a suitcase in my hand, I bumped right into 
him. “Think only!’ I cried with uncontrolled 
gladness, “‘I live now in the same house you live.” 

“Oh, is that so?” he said, in his quiet voice. And 
then I wondered if his voice was so extra quiet be-— 
Cause my own voice was so loud with gladness. 

The next morning I was wondering what hour he 
went to class. So as not to miss him, I was waiting 
for him on the doorstep from eight o’clock on. Ach! 
I thought. ‘To walk and talk with him for the few 
minutes to college, what a feast of joy to begin the 
day! 

At last he came out. 

“‘Good morning,” he said, and walked on. 

“Oh, Mr. Edman, I’m going to college, too,” I 
cried, catching up with him. I had a thousand 
questions that I had in my mind to ask him. But 
only after he bowed and I saw him walk up the steps 
to Philosophy Hall did I realize that I had forgotten 
everything that I had meant to talk to him about. 

In the evening, as I passed his door, on the way up 
to my room, I heard him cough. I tried to go on 
with the lesson, but the repeated sound of his cough 
went through and through me so that I could not 
concentrate on my work. And before I knew what 


COLLEGE 229 


I was doing, I was in the delicatessen store, buying a 
pint of milk. I hurried back to my room, heated the 
milk on my gas jet, and with the hot saucepan in my 
hand I knocked at his door. 

“Hot milk is good for your cough,” I stammered, 
as he opened the door. 

He looked in surprise at me, and then slowly 
smiled. “Oh, you shouldn’t have done this.”’ He 
poured the milk into a glass. “Thank you,” he 
said, handing me the saucepan and closing the door. 

Because of the rain, I couldn’t wait for him on the 
doorstep the next morning. I didn’t hear him go out 
till the front door slammed. Through the window, 
I saw him walk quickly, with his head bent, through 
the rain. Quick as lightning I seized my umbrella 
and ran after him, crying, “Mr. Edman—Mr. 
Edman! You mustn’t get wet. Remember, you 
haveacold. Here’s my umbrella.” 

He stopped. He turned around. ‘Miss Smolin- 
sky, you mustn’t bother so about me. I don’t like 
it 

His tone of annoyance hit me like a blow. I re- 
mained standing in the rain and let him goon. He 
hurried along the drenched pavement, and over him 
the quiet elms poured their cooling drops steadily. 

As I watched him disappear down the street, I 
knew with sudden terrible clearness that he was 
going out of my life for ever. 

Oh, Morris Lipkin! Was it all for nothing? God! 


Must I always remain such a fool! Such a fool! 


230 BREAD GIVERS 


Will even the hurts and shames of .my life teach me 
nothing? O God! Give me only the hard heart 
of reason! 


A thousand years oider I wasby thetimeI dragged _ 


myself up the stairs to my room. I threw myself 
on the bed. My whole body ached with the bitter- 
ness of it all. Insane I’ve been—reaching for 
I know not what and only pushing it away in my 
clumsiness. 

I want knowledge. How, like a starved thing in 
the dark, I’m driven to reach for it. A flash, and 
all lights up! Almost I seem to touch the fiery 
centre of life! And there! It was only a man. 
~ And I’m left in the dark again. 


What was that flash of light that lured me into this - 


blackness? Was it desire for the man, or desire for 
knowledge? Why does one kill the other and make 
everything that was so real nothing but an empty 
mockery? 

For hours I lay listening to the breathing of the 
elm leaves in the rain. 

Slowly, the clouding numbness left me. Work to 
be done. Work to be done. That’s why I came to 
college. 

Stupid yok! Always wasting yourself with wild 
loves. [ll put a stop to it. I'll freeze myself like 
ice. I'll be colder thanthe coldest. T’malone. I’m 
alone. 

Little by little, I began to get hold of myself. If 
I lost out with those spick-and-span youngsters like 


COLLEGE pag | 


Mr. Edman, I won with the older and wiser pro- 
fessors. After a while, I understood why the young 
men didn’t like me. I knew more of life as a ten- 
year-old girl, running the streets, than these psy- 
chology instructors did with all their heads swelled 
from too much knowing. 

With the older men I could walk and talk as a 
person. To them, my Hester Street world was a 
new world. I gave them mine, and they gave me 
theirs. What could such raw youth as Mr. Ed- 
man know of that ripened understanding that older 
men could give! 

As time went on, | found myself smiling at the 
terrible pain and suffering that my crush for Mr. 
Edman had cost me. That affair, like the one with 
Morris Lipkin—all foolish madness which, though it 
nearly killed me, made me grow faster in reason than 
if I had no such madness in me. 

Each time, after making a crazy fool of myself over 
a man, I was plunged into thick darkness that seemed 
the end of everything, but it really led me out into 
the beginnings of wider places, newer light. 

Gradually, I grew up even to be friends with the 
dean. His house was always open to me. Once, 
while we were chatting in his library, I asked him 
suddenly, ‘Why is it that when a nobody wants to 
get to be somebody she’s got to make herself terribly 
hard, when people like you who are born high up can 
keep all their kind feelings and get along so naturally 
well with everybody?” Te ae 


232 BREAD GIVERS 


~ He looked at me with the steady gaze of his under- 
standing eyes. 

“All pioneers have to get hard to survive,’ he said. 
He pointed to a faded oil painting of his grand- 
mother. “‘Look! My grandmother came to the 
wilderness in an ox cart and with a gun on her lap. 
She had to chop down trees to build a shelter for her- 
self and her children. I’m more than a little ashamed 
to realize if I had to contend with the wilderness I'd 
perish with the unfit. But you, child—your place 
is with the pioneers. And you’re going to survive.” 

After that I could not go back to my little room. 
For hours I walked. I needed the high stars and 
the deep stillness of the night to hold my exaltation. 


* * * * * * * 


The senior year came, and with it a great event. 
‘The biggest newspaper owner of the town, who was a 
rich alumnus of the college, offered a prize of a thou- 
sand dollars for the best essay on “‘ What the College 
Has Done for Me.” Everybody was talking about 
it, students, instructors, and professors. 

What had the college done for me? I thought of 
the time when I first came here. How I was thrilled 
out of my senses by the mere sight of plain, clean 
people. The smashed hurdle inthe gymnasium. The 
way I dashed into the bursar’s office demanding 
money for my failed geometry. Yes. Perhaps 
more than all the others, [ had something to write 
about. Maybe they wouldn’t understand. But if 


COLLEGE 233 


truth was what they wanted—here they had it. I 
poured it out as it came from my heart, and sent it 
in. Then I had to put it out of my mind because I 
was so buried deep in my examinations. Everything 
was forgotten in this last fight to win my diploma. 

It was Commencement Day at last. Glad but 
downhearted I was—glad because I’d won, but so sad 
I was to leave the battlefield! The thing I had 
dreamed about for so many years—and now it was 
over! Where I was going now, will I be able to 
find these real American people again—that draw me 
so? 

With all the students and professors, I sat in the 
big assembly room and listened to the long speeches 
that seemed never to end. 

At last a man came up to announce the winner of 
the contest. ‘The student,” he said, “whose essay 
the judges found the best is a young lady. Her 
name is God in the world! Who? Who was 
it? They were clapping to beat the band. I only 
heard him say, “Will she please come forward to the 
platform?” 

I heard the clapping louder and louder. Then I 
saw they were all looking at me. “Sara Smolinsky, 
it’s you. It’s you! Don’t you hear? They’re call- 
ing for you.” 

How my paralyzed feet ever got me to the plat- 
form, I don’t know. So exciting it was! It was I, 
myself, standing there before that sea of faces! 

The man handed me an envelope and said things 


234 BREAD GIVERS 


that flew over my head. How could I have the 
sense to hear or think to say something? 

Then all the students rose to their feet, cheering 
and waving and calling my name, like a triumph, ~ 
‘Sara Smolinsky—Sara Smolinsky!” 


BOOK III 
THE NEW WORLD 


CHAPTER XVII 


MY HONEYMOON WITH MYSELF 


Ho tom Back to New York! Sara Smolinsky, 


from Hester Street, changed into a person! 

Kid gloves were on my hands. All my 
things were neatly packed in a brand-new leather sat- 
chel. Who would believe, as J took my seat with the 
quiet stillness of a college lady, how I was burning up 
with excited pride in myself. I was like a person who 
had climbed to the top of a high mountain and was 
still breathless with his climb. If only I could have 
taken out my diploma and held it over my head for 
all to see! I was a college graduate! I was about 
to become a teacher of the schools! 

For the first time in my life, I knew the luxury of 
travelling in a Pullman. I even had my dinner in 
the dining car. How grand it felt to lean back in my 
chair, a person among people, and order anything | 
wanted from the menu. No more herring and 
pickle over dry bread, I ordered chops and spinach 
and salad. AsI spread out my white, ironed napkin 
on my lap, I thought of thetime only four years before, 
when I pinched pieces out of the loaf, and wiped my 
mouth with a corner of a newspaper and threw it 
under the seat. 


237 


238 BREAD GIVERS 


What a wonderful experience, to go to bed in a 


sleeping car behind those damask curtains! As I~ 


stretched myself out comfortably, between those 
silken soft linen sheets, my flesh relaxed so delicious- 
ly, it was a sin to fall asleep. For a time, I lay 


there luxuriously listening to the rhythm of the re- _ 


volving wheels of the train. When I finally drowsed 
away, it was to live over again in dreams that last 
triumphant day at college. When I awoke, my ears 
were still ringing with the cheering and applauding 
and the chorus of voices calling my name. 

The next day, in New York, I walked, for the first 
time in my life, on Fifth Avenue, devouring with my 
eyes the wonderful shop windows. 


My hand was in my coat pocket, clutching a check 


book of a thousand dollars to my account. 

I could buy anything now. Anything. I could 
begin my career as a teacher as well dressed as 
any of them. The dark night of poverty was 
over. I had fought my way up into the sunshine 
of plenty. 

Shop after shop I passed. But I didn’t have to 
buy the first thing in sight. I could choose now what 
IT wanted. Oh, that pink ball gown! Grand! But 
not for me. Furs? ‘That’s too rich yet. A pearl 
necklace? Maybe for born ladies. I must be plain 
as I am without ornaments. Here’s the Sport 
Shop—that’s where the college girls get their college 
clothes. How I had dreamed of them and despaired 
of ever having them. What fine suits in that win- 


== 


~MY HONEYMOON WITH MYSELF 239 


dow. There! There! That graceful quietness. That’s 
what a teacher ought to wear. 

How cool my voice, how quiet my manner, as I 
walked through the huge doors and went up the eleva- 
tor, and then to the department where suits were sold. 

*“I want a suit like this,” I indicated to the sales- 
lady. ‘‘Show me the best.” 

Jor the first time in my life I asked for the best, not 
the cheapest. 

A smiling saleswoman handed me a chair. ‘‘ Will 
madam be seated?” ‘Then she showed me several 
suits from the rack and called for a model. One 
after another, the model put on these quality clothes, 
walking up and down before me, to show them back 
and front. The head of the department herself, as 
well as the saleslady and the model, stood before me, 
awaiting my pleasure. 

I considered a blue suit, a gray, a brown. Finally, 
I decided on a dark blue. Plain serge only! Yes. 
But more style in its plainness than the richest velvet. 
I tried it on in a beautiful fitting room lined with 
mirrors. From all angles I could see myself. It was 
all I could do to hold myself in and not shout out my 
joy before the saleslady. She saw, even before I 
did, that there was a slight wrinkle in the shoulder of 
the jacket, and called for the fitter to make it just 
right on me. There seemed no pains too great to 
please me. | 

“Thank you, madam,”’ the saleslady took down my 
address. ‘“‘It will be sent you by special delivery.”’ 


240 BREAD GIVERS 


I went on to the millinery department and bought 
a hat to match my new suit. Then I rode up to 
another floor, and chose shoes, stockings, new under- 
wear, gloves, and fine handkerchiefs. 

When my things came, I tried them on again be- 
fore the big mirror in my hotel room—hat, coat, 
shoes, the whole outfit, even the new handkerchief. 
For the first time in my life I was perfect from head 
to foot. Now I laughed aloud in my pleasure. 
There was no saleslady around before whom I had to 
act as though I were used to it always. No prima 
donna dressed up for the opera ever felt grander than 
I, ready to be a teacher in the schools. 

Now for a place to live. 

How different was my search for a room now than 
a few years ago. It was merely a matter of going to 
a real-estate office. A polite agent greeted me with 
business-like courtesy. I told him the kind of a 
room | wanted and the amount I could afford to pay. 
He handed me a list of addresses. And in about an 
hour I had selected a sunny, airy room, the kind of a 
room I had always wanted. Dealing with an agent 
was as different from the tyranny of landladies, with 
their personal questions, as bargaining for my things 
at a pushcart was different from choosing them at a 
department store. 

I furnished my room very simply. A table, a bed, 
a bureau, a few comfortable chairs. No carpet on 
the floor. No pictures on the wall. Nothing but a 
clean, airy emptiness. But when I[ thought of the 


MY HONEYMOON WITH MYSELF 241 


crowded dirt from where I came, this simplicity was 
rich and fragrant with unutterable beauty. 

I sat down in my easy chair and let the quiet and 
the sunshine flow over me. A triumphant sense of 
power filled me. Life was all before me because my 
work was before me. I, Sara Smolinsky, had done 
what I had set out todo. Iwas now a teacher in the 
public schools. And this was but the first step in 
the ladder of my new life. Iwas only at the begin- 
ning of things. The world outside was so big and 
vast. Now I'll have the leisure and the quiet to go 
on and on, higher and higher. 

Once I had been elated at the thought that a man 
had wanted me. How much more thrilling to feel 
that | had made my work wanted! ‘This was the 
honeymoon of my career! 

I celebrated it alone with myself. I celebrated it 
in my room, my first clean, empty room. In the 
morning, in the evening, when I sat down to meals, 
I enjoyed myself as with grandest company. I 
loved the bright dishes from which I ate. I loved 
the shining pots and pans in which I cooked my food. 
I loved the broom with which I swept the floor, 
the scrubbing brush, the scrubbing rag, the dust cloth. 
The routine with which I kept clean my precious 
privacy, my beautiful aloneness, was all sacred to me. 
I had achieved that marvellous thing, “a place for 
everything and everything in its place,’ which the 
teachers preached to me so hopelessly while a child 
in Hester Street. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


DEATH IN HESTER STREET 


S I got ready to make my first visit home, I 

A began to wonder what had happened to 

Father, Mother, and sisters in those six 

years that | was away. Would I find them changed? 

Would they understand that my silent aloofness for 

so long had been a necessity and not selfish indiffer- 
ence! 

Till now I had no time to be human or enjoy 
sociability with people. Now I felt like a prisoner 
just out from a long confinement in prison. Love 
ached in me more thanif I had been with them all the 
time. It was like a secret wound that I had kept 
covered for six years. And now that I bared it, it 
hurt. 

How I longed to share with them everything that 
was mine! I had no great riches to bring them. 
But this beautiful, clean emptiness I had created for 
myself, this | longed to share with them. 

I looked on the address of the last. letter and 
searched for the number of the house. They had 
moved back to Hester Street, though on a different 
block. Father could never be happy unless he prayed 
in the same old synagogue, and Mother could never 

242 


DEATH IN HESTER STREET 243 


feel at home outside the block where we had grown 
in sO many years. 

The door of the flat was ajar. Hearing Mother’s 
and Father’s voices, I was panic-stricken at the 
thought of facing them, and I hid behind the door. 

“Stay with me, Moisheh,” came pleadingly from 
Mother. _ 

“Woman! You want me to be late to the syna- 
gogue!”’ 

“But see how sick 1am. Howcan you leave me?” 

“I never yet missed my prayers in my life.” 

**1’m afraid to be alone,’ Mother moaned. “Im 
so helpless.” 

“Well, what canI do? I’m no doctor. But if I 
run quicker to pray, God will at once hear me, and 
send you a cure.” 

“Woeisme! Can’t yousee my days are counted?” 

“Tl call the widow Mrs. Feinstein, she’ll stay with 
you” | 

“Her! That barrel of fat! I can’t stand her near 
me. She’s only waiting for my death so you could 
be her boarder i 

“Woman! Why are you keeping me? I'll be late 
on account of you. I can help you more by running 
to the synagogue to pray than staying with you.” 
And off he rushed. 

As I saw Father stamping away, the old, dominat- 
ing energy still pounding in each step, I crept out 
from behind the door. Through the cracked mirror 
opposite Mother’s bed, I caught a glimpse of her 


ae BREAD GIVERS 
gray, wasted face. What a change! Almost be- 


yond recognition. Pain and suffering on all her 
features. Only the shadow, the semblance of herself 
was there. I wanted to cry out, but tears of horror 
froze me. I thought of the time when I told her I 
must leave home and she begged me not to leave her. 
I remembered that freezing winter night when she 
came to me all the way from Elizabeth with a feather 
bed. She begged me then to come and see her, and 
I had answered her, “‘I have no time. I can come 
to see you later, but I can’t study later.”’ And now 
that I took the time to come, to find her so sick, so 
helpless! 

“Mother!” I cried, falling on her neck. 

Sara!’ She sat up, lifted my face in her bony 
hands. “You? You here? I was just dreaming 
of you. Every day I saw you in my dreams I 
knew you were coming.” 

I could only pat her precious hand, trying to gulp 
back my tears. 

“* How beautiful you look!’ She touched the sleeve 
of my coat. “New clothes. You shine like a prin- 
cess. I feel like Father Jacob after seeing his son 
Joseph, who he thought was dead.”’ 

Tears fell from her faded eyes as she gazed hungrily 
at me. “Why did you stay away so long? Where 
was your heart? All those years!’ 

“Mother! Don’t excite yourself. Now Ill come 
to you often.” 

“Now—now! Don’t you see it’s my end?” 


DEATH IN HESTER STREET 245 


Weakness dragged my knees to the ground. O 
God! What can I do to atone? my heart cried. 

‘Are you already a finished teacherin?”’ 

I nodded. 

“1’m so glad I lived to hearit. If Il were only not 
so far gone, this would make me live longer. But 
now, my strength is going out. Nothing can make 
me well any more.” 

“You will get well. You must get well. I shall 
look after you from now on.” 

I unwrapped a new purse and took out five brand- 
new twenty-dollar gold pieces, and displayed them to 
Mother. “From now on, your fight with the 
pennies is over. I’m a teacher of the schools with an 
all-year salary from the Government.” 

She smiled, but her eyes were so sorrowful above 
her smile. 

“T’ll stay with you every day, when I’m through 
school. Tell me only anything I can do for you.” 

“‘Be good to Father,” she begged. “I’m leaving 
him in his old age when he needs me most. Helpless 
as a child he is. No one understands his holiness as 
I. Only promise me that you'll take good care of 
him, and I can close my eyes in peace.” 

“You have yet many years to live. I'll get the 
best doctors.” 

She shook her head. Then, moaning, uncovered 
the bandage of her foot. ‘Oh, weh! The pain! I 
don’t get better. It only gets worse.” 

My eyes shut with horror. My God! Her toes 


246 BREAD GIVERS > 


eaten with decay and gangrene spreading. I couldn’t 
speak. I could only feel the anguish of her flesh 
trending me more terribly than if I could actually 
take upon myself her pain. ! 

“If you'll promise me to take good care of Father, — 
Ill pray in the next world God should send you good 
luck. You'll yet get a better husband than all your 
sisters.” 

While she was yet talking Fania came in, as stylish 
as ever, a huge bunch of red roses inher hand. She 
threw down the roses on Mother’s bed and rushed 
over to me, in excited surprise. “Well, well! Of 
all people! Why were you hiding yourself so long? 
Was that what they taught you in college, to turn 
your back on your own people?” ) 

“‘Sh-sh-sh!’? admonished Mother. “Thank God 
she came now. Don’t spoil my little joy in my last 
hours.”’ Her thin fingers twined into mine. “ Praise 
be to God! I lived to see my daughter a teacherin.” 
Fania picked up the roses and held them up to 
Mother. ‘Smell them only! Aren’t they beauti- 
ful?’ 

“What do I need flowers yet!” she sighed, pushing 
them away. “There'll soon be flowers growing on 
my grave. When I was well, I liked flowers and | 
never got any. Now I’m so sick it hurts me to look 
on them.” 

I gathered the roses up in my arms, and as I turned 
to take them to the kitchen, Mashah and Bessie came 
in. 


DEATH IN HESTER STREET 247 


‘From where did you drop down? From Heaven?” 
they cried, embracing me. 

How changed they were. Six years of poverty had 
pinched Mashah the beautiful into a ragged yenteh. 
And Bessie was grayer and drabber than ever before. 

We looked at one another, our hearts wrecked with 
helplessness. ‘“‘Good God! What has happened to 
Mother!”’ we flashed to one another in dumb silence. 
I would have broken down the next minute, but 
Bessie winked at me not to let go. She hid her own 
tear-filled eyes, bending down to smooth Mother’s 
bed, 

“Nu? What do you think of our new-found stylish 
lady?’ Bessie forced a gay tone into her voice as she 
turned to Mother. 

“Some style!’ laughed Fania. ‘“‘Like a regular old 
maid. Any one can see a mile off Sara’s a school 
teacher,” 

But Mother chanted gratefully: “God be praised 
I lived to see my daughter a teacherin.” 

We sat around talking of old times, laughing with a 
gaiety that we didnot feel in an effort to cheer Mother. 
But over the chatter of our voices, I suddenly heard 
Father’s heavy footsteps, ascending the stairs. 

““You—you here?’ Father grew red with anger 
at sight of me. “Somany years you left your mother. 
Aren’t you ashamed for your heartlessness?”’ 

“Leave the girl alone,” Mother defended. “A 
lot you care for me. You get your meals upstairs 
by that fat widow Feinstein.” 


248 BREAD GIVERS 


‘IT have to eat and she’s kind enough to cook for 
32 
me. 


“‘She’s kind, is shef” Mother jerked to one side — 
in the bed in a flare of wrath. ‘“‘Wait! You'll see 


after I’m gone what a false thing she 1s.” 

“Mother! Don’t excite yourself,” I begged. But 
she wouldn’t listen. She sat up with an effort and 
poured out a fury of smouldering jealousy at Father. 

**T see you’re already trimming your beard for your 
new wife. You're only waiting for me to close my 
eyes. You're only waiting for my lodge money to 
give it to that heartless thing. A fine wife she'll 
make you! Wait! You'll see the difference. Go— 
go—go—to her.”’ 

She dropped back in the bed, exhausted. 

Then Father came over to her, shaking his head 
tenderly, and laid his hand over her forehead and 


smoothed her hair. ‘‘Woman! Woman! What do 


you want from me?”’ 
The touch of his hand was like magic. Her whole 


face softened. A beautiful look came into her eyes as 


she gazed at Father, undying worship in her face. 

** Motsheh!”” she whispered. “Our Sara is already 
a teacherin in the schools.” 

“A Jot I have from it. She’s only good to the 
world, not to her father. Will she hand me her 
wages from school as a dutiful daughter should?” 

The doctor came in. He sat down at the bed and 
was putting the thermometer in Mother’s mouth 
when Father shook his arm anxiously. | 


DEATH IN HESTER STREET 249 


“Nu, Doctor? What do you think?” 

A grave look was the doctor’s only reply. 

“Doctor! Save me my wife!’ Father implored. 
**Since she’s sick my house is in ruin. I have to go 
for a drop of soup to a neighbour. No one looks 
after me. It says in the Torah, a man who loses his 
wife is like a man who has lived through the destruc- 
tion of the temple.” 

“You've got to get well.” The doctor gently 
tapped Mother’s shoulder. ‘‘ You see how your hus- 
band needs you.” 

“Doctor! | You’ve already met my older daugh- 
ters.’ Father proudly pointed to my sisters. 
“This daughter’s husband is in the fish business. 
This one married the biggest cloaks-and-suits manu- 
facturerin America. ‘This one, a dealer in diamonds. 
I married them all off myself. And this, my young- 
est, is a i¢acherin. She has ahead onher. Takes 
after her father, even though she’s only a girl.” 

The doctor glanced at Father, knowingly, and 
smiled at me, while Father went on innocently 
singing his own praises. ‘“‘Nu, Doctor! _ Where do 
you find a poor father letting his daughter go to col- 
lege? It cost me enough, her education, all those 
years of wages that [ lost.” 

On his way out, the doctor called Fania and me 
aside, to tell us that there was danger of blood- 
poison setting in, and that Mother’s foot must be 
amputated immediately. It grew black before my 
eyes. Fania and I stared at each other, unable to 


250 BREAD GIVERS 


grasp the hopelessness of the situation. Only de- 
spair nerved me with the courage to speak. 

“Mother!” I began. ‘“‘The doctor said you’re — 
setting better. But to get real well, he advises an 
operation in the hospital.” 

She shot alook of terror at me. ‘‘Hospital! Tobe 
cut up? No. Never. If I got to die, Dll die at 
home.” 

She stopped and tightened her lips asthe widow Mrs. 
Feinstein entered. ‘“‘Nu, how are you feeling, Mrs. 
Smolinsky?” the widow asked, with an ingratiating 
smile. 

“The doctor said I’m much better,”’ said Mother, 
with spiteful hardness in her voice. ‘‘I’ll soon be well 
and out of bed.” 

“TY only hope the doctor tells youthe truth. Any- 
how, if you'll get better, Il teach you how to make 
lokshen kugel for your husband the way I make it. 
You ought to see how he licked his fingers from every 
bite.”’ 

““My poor husband! He must have been starved 
if he could eat your kugel.”’ | 

We motioned to the widow to leave the room, as she 
was only exciting Mother. 

That same afternoon we got a day- and a night- 
nurse. For a few days the constant care seemed to 
make her better. We began to think maybe the doctor 
was mistaken. Maybe an operation was not neces- 
sary. 

One day I had left Mother in a fairly hopeful condi- 


DEATH IN HESTER STREET 251 


tion, but by the time I came back from school, a 
change had set in. 

Propped on pillows, she sat in bed, my sisters around 
her, weeping. Was that gray, ghastly face Mother’s? 
Only the eyes that gazed at me seemed alive. What 
sorrowful eyes! What unutterable sadness looked 
out from their silent depths! What worlds of pain 
lay dumb in that helpless gaze! ‘Two tears rolled 
slowly down her cheeks as she looked at me. The 
eyes seemed agonized with longing to speak, but only 
tears came. 

My God! She’s dying. Mother is dying! I tried 
to think, to make myself realize that Mother, with all 
this dumb sorrow gazing at me, was passing, passing 
away, forever. But above the dull pain that pressed 
on my heart, thinking was impossible. I felt I was 
in the clutch of some unreal dream from which I was 
trying towaken. ‘Tiny fragments of memory rushed 
through my mind. I remembered with what wild 
abandon Mother had danced the kozatzkeh at a 
neighbour’s wedding. With what passion she had 
bargained at the pushcart over a penny. tee 
How her face lit up whenever company came! How 
her eyes sparkled with friendliness as she served 
the glasses of tea, spread everything we had on the 
table, to show her hospitality. A new pair of stock- 
ings, a clean apron, a mere car ride, was an event 
in her life that filled her with sunshine for the whole 
day. 

God! God! She’s dying. No. No. 


252 BREAD GIVERS 


Ts there a God over us and sees her suffersof . . 
She had seized me by the hand. She had begged me 
to come and see her. And I had answered her, “I 
can come to see you later, but { can’t go to col- 
lege later. x 

“Mamma—mamma!” I sobbed. 

Suddenly the sorrowful eyes became transfigured 
with light. Her lips moved. I could not get the 
words, but the love-light of Mother’s.eyes flowed into 
mine. I felt literally Mother’s soul enter my soul — 
like a miracle. Then all became dark. Blackness 
drowned me. 

When I came back to my senses, the house was 
crowded. I found myself on the lounge, Bessie put- 
ting cold towels over my head. Mashah and Fania 
were tearing their hair and shrieking hysterically, 
““Mamma—Mamma!’ For the first time in my life 
I saw Father weeping, like a lost child. Never be- 
fore did I see him suffer. How strange he looked! 
His old veined hand holding a red kerchief, hiding 
his face, his gray beard trembling, his whole body 
bent and shaken with sobs. For the first timel 
realized that he was old and that he was without 
Mother. Rushing over to him I flung my arms 
around his neck, and wept with him. 

People coming and going. Wailing and screaming. 
Tumult and confusion. I saw Mother laid out in 
her coffin. The eyes that but a few hours before 
filled me with light, those eyes were tightly shut, 
sunken deep in their sockets. The nose drawn in, 


_ DEATH IN HESTER STREET 253 


bluish pallor staining the nostrils. Lower jaw 
dropped, revealing stubs of decayed teeth. Ears 
yellow as wax. This was death. This was not 
Mother. I stared and stared, and I felt myself 
turning to ice, staring. 

I touched the sunken lids where the eyes had shone 
on me with such ineffable love. My hand withdrew, 
shuddering. Cold, icy Death. Mother no more. 

Where? Where has it gone, that light, that spark, 
that love that looked into mine? What has it to do 
with that cold clay? It’s here, here, here in my heart. 
She’s in me, around me. Not in that clay. 

I felt a hand under my arm leading me away 
into the kitchen. In one heart-breaking monotone 
Father wailed: 

“Woe! Woe! My house is fallen! My burden 
bearer gone! Who'll take care of me now? Who'll 
cook me my meals? Who'll wash me my clothes? 
Who'll light me my Sabbath candles? For forty 
years I protected you, watched over you, prayed for 
you. Now you're torn away from me. Be a good 
messenger to God for me. Beg him not to forsake 
me. Not leave me in loneliness. O God! God! 
Help mein my woe! Give me strength to stand my 
loss.” 

As Father crumpled into a heap, spent with grief, 
the widow Mrs. Feinstein began to howl at the top 
of her voice, wringing her hands and rocking herself 
over the coffin. ‘‘My best friend! My neighbour! 
Forgive me if I talked evil of you. I take it all back. 


264 BREAD GIVERS 


I didn’t mean nothing. Who would know that you 
would die so soon? Forgive me. Be a good mes- 
senger to God forme. Prayin Heavenforme. Beg 
God to be merciful to me and spare me all ills.” 

Other neighbours came in screaming, tearing their 
hair, and beating their breasts. Falling on the 
coffin and begging the dead body to forgive their evil 
talk during her lifetime. Begging the corpse to be a 
messenger in Heaven for them, to beg God to spare 
them all ills. 

The room become crowded with all kinds of old and 
middle-aged men and women. Some moaning with 
grief, others with stony, serious faces. In the eyes 
of the old, fear of their own end. 

A chorus of wailing neighbours gathered about the 
body, rocking and swaying and wringing their hands 
in woe. 

**Such a good mother, such a virtuous wife,” wailed 
a shawled woman with a nursing baby in her arms 
and two little tots hanging to her skirts. ‘“‘Never 
did she allow herself a bite to eat but left-overs, 
never a dress but the rags her daughters had thrown 
away.” 

“Such a cook! Such a housewife!’ groaned a white- 
haired old woman wiping her eyes with a corner of 
her shawl. “Only two days ago she told me how 
they cook the fish in her village sweet and sour— 
and now, she is dead.” 

At this, all the women began rocking and swaying ~ 
in a wailing chorus. 


'? 


DEATH IN HESTER STREET 2s 


“‘Only aweek ago she wastellling me she was getting 
better,” began the widow Mrs. Feinstein. ‘But I 
saw it was her end.” 

“Yesterday morning, shewas telling me if she'll only 
get well, she'll stop worrying and take it easy. And 
now vs 
Floods of tears were shed by these strangers, but 
my eyes were dry. My heart wasnumb. My mind 
became a petrified blank. Suddenly I heard the 
undertaker, cold and unconcerned, announce: 

“Members of the family take your last look!” 

We filed around the coffin, frozen with grief. 

The lid shut down. A shriek from the whole 
crowded room burst through the air as the undertaker 
ground the screws into the cofin. “Never shall we 
see her face again. Never, never!” it echoed and re- 
echoed. ‘‘Never shall we see her face again. Never.” 

The undertaker, with a knife in his hand, cut into 
Father’s coat and he rent his garments according to 
the Biblical law and ages of tradition. Then he slit 
my sisters’ waists, and they, too, did as Father had 
done. Then the man turned to me with the knife 
inhishand. ‘“‘No,’ I cried. “I feel terrible enough 
without tearing my clothes.” 

“It has to be done.” 

“I don’t believe in this. It’s my only suit, and I 
need it for work. ‘Tearing it wouldn’t bring Mother 
back to life again.” 

A hundred eyes burned on me their condemnation. 

“Look at her, the Americanerin!”’ 


256 BREAD GIVERS 


‘Heart of stone.” 

‘A lot she cares for her mother’s death.” 

**Not a tear did she shed. Her face is washed. 
Her hair is combed. Did we care how we looked 
when our mothers died ?”’ 

Four shabby-looking, frail, ill-fed poor men lifted 
the coffin on their shoulders. People pushed back on 
both sides to make room for the men to pass. Louder 
shrieks burst through the air again as the coffin was 
borne out of the house, through the crowded hall, 
and down the crowded stoop. Passers-by joined in 
the hysterical shrieks. They didn’t know who died, 
but were drawn in by the common grief of death. 

The coffin was pushed into the hearse. The door 
shut with a bang. 

We stood jammed in by neighbours, waiting for the 
carriage to take us to the cemetery. All I saw were 
mobs and mobs of strangers staring at us. And all I 
heard was the clanking of coins in tin boxes, and in- 
sistent begging voices, exhorting the people, “Charity 
saves you from death! Charity saves you from 
death!” | Lane aa 


CHAPTER XIX 
LODGE MONEY 


~ HAD failed to give Mother the understanding of 

| her deeper self during her lifetime. Let me 

at least give it to Father while he was yet alive. 
And so, every day, after school, I went to see him. 

He did not lookso forlornas I thought he would. He 
looked like one who had straightened out his back 
after the strain of a long, heavy burden. Perhaps 
he was glad that Mother’s sufferings were over. 
Then I noticed he began wearing his Sabbath clothes 
for every day. He began to polish his shoes and comb 
his beard like for a holiday. Once I found him gaz- 
ing at himself in the mirror and smiling with an 
innocent joyfulness that made me wonder how he 
could be so childishly happy when Mother was dead. 
He still ate his meals upstairs at Mrs. Feinstein’s. 
But before, he used to eat there only his suppers. 
Now, he ate there three times a day. 

Often I wanted to ask him if he was getting his food 
cooked just right, but I hated to speak of that widow. 
The mere thought of that woman filled me with a 
blind dislike that I couldn’t reason about. 

One day, I came and found her sewing a button on 

257 


258 BREAD GIVERS 


Father’s shirt. After a hasty greeting she walked 
out. She must have known how I felt toward her. 

As the door closed behind her, Father exclaimed, 
“What a womanly woman! What a virtuous soul! 
All she thinks of is how to cook for me the things I 
like and how to please me the most. The more I see 
her, the more I feel what a diamond treasure she is. 
How she could make a man happy!’ 

I stared at Father. What had happened to him! 
Was he bereft of his senses? That such a spiritual man 
could find anything in that bold-faced barrel of fat! 

“In my misfortune, God yet sent me a great good 
luck,” Father went on. ‘‘She’s so kind, so nice to 
me. God punished me with one hand and blessed 
me with the other.”’ 

I looked at Father’s guileless face and longed to shake 
him out of his blind foolishness, tell him about the 
world, about scheming women. But I was too angry 
to speak. My lips tightened, struggling to control 
myself. 

*Y ou ought to taste her kugel, her gefulte fish! Her 
cooking puts a new taste in life. And she’s so quick 
and handy. Her table is set with a clean tablecloth 
for every day. And the knives and forks and evena 
paper napkin is all laid out, waiting for me, when I 
come. Every time I see her, her face is washed, 
her hair is combed and a clean apron. Always 
there’s a smile on her face. The sun shines from 
her. I can see she’s a woman who don’t curse like 
other women.” 


LODGE MONEY 259 


I shuddered, as he went on, exulting in that 
woman’s virtues. After Mother’s devotion, how could 
he turn to such a creature? The thought of her 
sitting in Mother’s Tae occupying Mother’s bed, 
revolted me. | 

A few days after, sae I called, I noticed Father 
avoided my eyes. Hewalked up and down, awkward. 
and uncomfortable, as if he had something on his 
mind that bothered him. Suddenly, he stopped 
pacing the floor, brought his chair in front of me, 
and sat down. 

_ “T have something to tell you,” he began. ‘You 
understand a little more than your sisters, because 
you have a little bit of my head on you.” 

He paused and again avoided'my eyes. | felt some- 
thing terrible coming. I waited, my heart pounding 
in my throat. 

“You know I can’t remain alone. And I can’t live 
with any of you children, because none of you are 
religious enough. I have to have my own house and 
someone to take care of me. It says inthe Torah, a 
man must have a wife to keep himself pure, otherwise 
his eyes are tempted by evil. It says no man needs 
to wait more than thirty days after his wife’s death to 
marry again. And I couldn’t find a better woman 
than Mrs. Feinstein.” 

The room began to rock. Everything whirled be- 
fore me in a blur. 

Thirty days! Mother not yet cold in her grave. 
And he already planning for a new wife! 


260 BREAD GIVERS 


“Father! That woman! Her thick lips—her fat 
cheeks—and you!” 

“Would you want me better to marry a consump- 
tive?” 

I felt as if my heart were torn in pieces. I wanted 
to scream, but my voice stopped inside of me. 

Now I understood why Father began to wear his 
Sabbath clothes for every day. Why he polished his 
shoes, why he had smiled to himself so happily in the 
mirror. 

I had thought that Mother was talking out of pain 
and fever when she called him “the young bride- 
groom,” and accused him of trimming his beard for 
his new wife. She had seen it all before her death. 

Father!’ LTimplored. ‘“‘Save yourself from doing 
this terrible thing. You know nothing about wo- 
men if you can be taken in by her. Can’t you see 
she’s only after your lodge money?” 

“I’ve seen enough in my life to bea judge of people,” 
cried Father, angrily. “I know what I’m doing.” 

I seized his hand in mine. ‘‘There’s yet time,” I 
entreated. ‘“‘At least, won’t you think it over?” 

*“T’ve done all my thinking already. I married her 
yesterday.” 

“Married! Father! You married!’ The words 
clawed themselves out of my heart. This man who 
thirty days ago had torn his clothes over Mother’s 
coffin, this man telling me he’s married! It was too 
much to bear. I could not breathe in the room 
where he was. Blindly, I rushed out. 


LODGE MONEY 261 


How I ever found my way to Bessie, I don’t know. 
But when I reached her home, my sisters were all 
there. 

“What is it? Your face is ashes!” Bessie cried. 

““ Mazel-tof! Rejoice!’ I dropped into a chair, 
weeping wildly. ‘“‘Mazel-tof! Mazel-tof!” 

“In God’s name! What is the matter with you? 
What do you mean?”’ 

“Rejoice! Father is married 

“Married!” they screamed. “Mashugeneh! Are 
you out of your head?” 

*Y esterday—he led her to the canopy.”’ 

In horrified silence we stared at one another. 
Worse than the shock of Mother’s death was the 
shock of this sacrilege. 

Suddenly Bessie gave a loud cry, “Mammeh! 
Mammeniu!” And she tore her hair and beat her 
head against the wall. 

The room grew full of wailing. 

“Mammeh! You're better off in the grave!” 

“Forty years Mother lived with him, cooked for 
him i 

“Never will I see his face again.” 

‘A bad father he was to us ny 

**Mother’s memory he dishonours so soon.” 

“That woman will fatten now on Mother’s death.” 

We went on beating the air, weeping with shame 
and anguish. What good were all ourtears? The 
shameful marriage had already happened. 

For several months none of us would go near 


(>? 


Bs BREAD GIVERS 


Father. Neighbours told us from time to time that 
he was shining like a tree in spring. He was getting 
younger and happier every day, like a bridegroom on 
a honeymoon. 

One day, as I stepped out of the classroom, a dirty- 
faced boy in the passageway handed mea letter. It 
was written in that flourishing hand that I recognized 
as the public letter-writer’s. It was from Father’s 
wife, too ignorant to sign her name. It said: 


DAUGHTER 
There’s trouble in your father’s house. Drop everything and 
hurry up, come at once. Remember, right away we need you. 
Mrs. SMOLINSKY. 


I shuddered. ‘Daughter!’ That creature daring 
to call me daughter, daring to fling at me the name 
that had been my mother’s, “Mrs. Smolinsky!” 
And yet, if Father was in trouble, I had to go. 

Shining in a new silk waist, she opened the door. 


Her fat bosom bulged like a pillow under her heavy 


double chins. She led me to the front room and 
pointed to a red velvet morris chair for me to sit 
down. The flat, with its new gaudy furniture, new 
red carpet, hit me like an insult. I thought of the 
broken rags of things with which Mother had to keep 
house. I thought of those freezing winter mornings 
when Mother had to get up before everybody, and 
shake out the ashes from a cold grate, and with 
freezing fingers start up the coal fire, if we were lucky 
enough to have coal. And this woman living in a 


LODGE MONEY 263 


steam-heated flat with all the comforts of the world— 
bought with Mother’s death money. 

Forcing down my indignation, I asked, ‘“‘What’s 
the trouble?’ 

*“There’s trouble enough,’ she burst out, in- 
dignantly. “Your father don’t earn a cent. He 
gives me nothing to live on. ‘There’s not a penny 
in the house since yesterday. What will become of 
us? How is the old man going to get along if you 
children have deserted him?”’ 

*Where’s all Father’s lodge money?” 

“What about this furniture? I had to fix up anew 
house, and it all cost money.” She began to weep 
hysterically. “You think your father married a 
poor servant girl? I was a princess by my first 
husband. I had servants nicer than some school 
teachers. And the fancy clothes my first husband 
used to buy me! When I walked out, I shined up 
the block with my style. Everybody turned their 
necks to give a look on me. What did your father 
buy me outside of a fur coat and this diamond cluster 
ring? He promised me earrings and everything, 
and give a look only on my empty ears.” 

Dumb with disgust, I glanced at her huge ears. An 
overdressed, overfed cow. And she Father’s wife. 
As she sat down, the buttons burst open from the 
bulging bosom of her waist. Pink ribbons peeped 
out from a new corset cover. Silk stockings, new 
shoes. All Mother’s death money onher back. And 


she demanding more, like a leech. 


264 BREAD GIVERS 


‘‘Do you mean to say you’ve spent all the lodge 
money in this short time?”’ 

“What?” she shrieked. ‘‘Accounts I should give 
you? What was your poor father, a millionaire? 
He had a few rotten dollars, and it’s long spent al- 
ready.” 

Oh, my poor mother! If but one day in her lifetime 
she would have had half the things this woman 
owned now, how happy she would have been! 

“He told me that all his children would put enough 
money together to keep him in comfort,” the woman 
wenton. ‘‘Andonthat,I got married. I could have 
picked myself out a younger man, but your father 
promised me such riches at 

In a fury, I jumped to my feet. ‘Father had 
money from four lodges. Enough to keep him a life- 
time. If he were in need and alone we would have 
supported him. But we can’t keep two people.” 

I rushed for the door, but she clutched my arm and 
held me back. “You mean you'll not support your 
old father?’ she screamed. ‘“‘I married to better 
myself. I’m not his servant to wait on him for 
nothing. If you and your sisters won’t support him, 
T’ll tell the charities. I'll tell them by the board of 
education that you refuse to support your old father.” 

“Go ahead. Do your worst. We'd pay Father’s 
board if he lived alone. But we'll not keep two 
people in luxury.” . 

“The heartlessness of his children! Talking 
luxury, when he don’t give me enough for bread———”’ — 


LODGE MONEY 265 


Father’s entrance at that moment turned her rage 
from me toward him. “You want your dinner yet?’’ 
she shouted at him in her shrill voice. “This is your 
last meal unless you bring me money. Your children 
don’t want to support you. So to the court [’ll go 
and have you arrested for not bringing me in a living.” 

“Zeresh! Snake!’ Father spat his contempt in her 
face. “I’ve just come from the lawyer. Hetold me 
no man over sixty can be arrested for not earning 
money for his wife. You’re younger and healthier 
and they'll put you to work to support me. Thank 
God, some laws of America are yet made by men!”’ 

At sight of me, Father’s angry voice ceased. Likea 
child, he turned to me for sympathy. ‘“‘Hear her 
only! The vulture! What does she want from me? 
I should go to work! I should bring her money!” 

The woman lifted a towel from the chair as if to 
throw it at Father, but her hand dropped and the 
towel fell to the floor. ‘Woe is me!” she sobbed in- 
toherapron. “All I ask of you is to be a man like 
other men. Pay the rent. Give me bread. Buy 
me a decent dress. I married to better myself.” 

Father turned his back on her and began to talk to 
me. “You see, Daughter, how I fell in with a dum- 
mox? Can I sit down to eat or look into a book? 
[ve got to get rid of this curse on me.” 

‘God is my witness, I don’t want to fight with you,” 
she wailed. “But it’s coming a holiday all overthe 
world. Ina few more days will be New Year. Iask 
you only, as a man with God in his heart, with what 


266 BREAD GIVERS 


can I show my face before theneighbours? When 
they'll see me, they'll only laugh: Huh! She 
married an old crazy—and such a beggar! She 
hasn’t from him even a new dress for the holidays.” 

Sobs drowned her torrent of words. Bucketfuls of 
tears seemed to flow out of her eyes. 

“What have I from my life since I married you? 
I’m ashamed to go among people. The first thing - 
I go anywhere, they give a look on my empty ears. — 
They got no respect for me because they see me with 
empty ears. The butcher’s wife, even the rag- 
pickers, they all got diamond earrings.” 

“Ishah Rah! Should I steal or rob to bring you 
diamond earrings?” 

“*A good husband steals and robs even, only to give 
his wife what’s coming to her. I’m a young woman 
yet. I want to live. I thought if '’d have a hus- 
band I’d have a man who'd be company and plea- 
sure if | 

“Servant! Cow!’ he hissed, furiously. ‘‘I should 
be your company? Could you with your dumb head, 
your thick flesh, ever understand what’s under the 
nail of my littlest finger?’ 

“Then why did you hurry so much to marry me?”’ 

“I wanted someone to cook for me, to wash for me, 
to carry the burden of my house for me ! 

“You wanted to warm up your old age with my 
youngness. And now I’m not worth to you the dirt 
under your feet i 


LODGE MONEY 267 


A loud knock interrupted the quarrel. A man 
came with a bill. 

“There!” she cried, snatching the paper. “Al- 
ready two weeks the groceries not paid te 

“Why not paid? You got enough yet in Lemanof- 
sky’s bank to start yourself a business.” 

“Do you make me for a liar and a thief? I al- 
ready have consumption. My heart is affected from 
your meanness "% 

“I want my money,” the man demanded. “What 
for are you wasting my time? You got so much 
for new furniture and carpet, why not first pay your 
grocery bill?” 

She motioned to the man to follow her in the hall. 
Through the crack in the door I saw her fumble in 
her stocking, take out a bill from a thick wad, and 
hand it to the grocer. 

But when she returned, she was weeping as loudly 
asever. “You think J’ll slave away my young years 
for you for nothing? You'll not drive me to an early 
grave as you did your first wife is 

“Thing of evil! Don’t dare take that saint’s 
name in your evil mouth. You’re not worth to 
speak her name.” He staggered to a chair and lifted 
his eyes in supplication. ‘‘God of the Universe! 
Have I not always done Your will? What sin have I 
committed here on earth? How could You have 
created such an Jshah Rah and send her on my 


head?” 


268 BREAD GIVERS 


What was there for me to do? Useless for me to 
interfere or try to make peace between them. Blind 
with tears I rushed from the room, down the stairs, 
straight to Bessie’s house. When I told my sisters 
of the woman’s demands that we support her they 
flared up in indignation. 

‘Support that woman?” cried Fania. “I’d sooner 
throw my money in the gutter.” 

“It would dishonour Mother’s memory if we gave 
that leech a cent,” declared Bessie. 

“* As you made your bed, so you got to sleep in it,” 
quoted Mashah, with scorn. ‘“That’s what he used 
to tell us. Now let him have a taste of his own 
preaching.”’ 

But as I came back to my quiet, sunny room, my 
heart ached for Father. What was my duty? Was 
it to give my hard-earned school money to this woman 
healthy enough to go to work? If she married 
Father to have it easy was it not her own mistake? 

I tried to still my conscience with reason. But my 
heart ached with the unceasing question, ‘What 
will become of Father if we abandon him to the 
mercy of that woman?” 


CHAPTER XX 


HUGO SEELIG 


HE windows of my classroom faced the same 
crowded street where seventeen years ago I 
started out my career selling herring. The 
same tenements with fire escapes full of pillows and 
feather beds. The same weazened, tawny-faced 
organ-grinder mechanically turning out songs that 
were all the music I knew of in my childhood. How 
intoxicating were those old tunes of the hurdy-gurdy! 
I’d leave my basket of herring in the middle of the 
sidewalk, forget all my cares, and leap into the dance 
with that wild abandon of the children of the poor. 
But more even than the music of the hurdy-gurdy 
was the inspiring sight of the teacherin as she passed 
the street. How thrilled I felt if I could brush by 
Teacher’s skirt and look up into her face as she passed 
me. If I was lucky enough to win a glance or a 
smile from that superior creature, how happy I felt 
for the rest of the day! I had it ingrained in me 
from my father, this exalted reverence for the teacher. 
Now I was the teacher. Why didn’t I feel as I 
had supposed this superior creature felt? Why hadi 
not the wings to fly with? Where was the vision lost? 
The goal was here. Why was I so silent, so empty?! 
269 


270 BREAD GIVERS 


All labour now—and so far from the light. I longed 
for the close, human touch of life again. My job was 
to teach—to feed hungry children. How could I 
give them milk when my own breasts were empty? 

Maybe after all my puffing myself up that I was 
smarter, more self-sufficient than the rest of the world 
—wasn’t Father right? He always preached, a 
woman alone couldn’t enter Heaven. “It says in 
the Torah: 4 woman without a man is less than nothing. 
No life on earth, no hope of Heaven.” 

Not one of the teachers around me had kept the 
glamour. They were just peddling their little bit of 
education for a living, the same as any pushcart 
peddler. 

But no. There was one in this school who was 
what I had dreamed a teacher to be—the principal, 
Mr. Hugo Seelig. He had kept that living thing, that 
flame, that I used to worship as a child. And yet he 
had none of the aloof dignity of a superior. He was 
just plainhuman. When he entered a classroom sun- 
light filled the place. 

How had he created that big spirit around him? 
What a long way I had to go yet before I could be- 
come so wholly absorbed in my work as he. The 
youngest, dirtiest child in the lowest grade he treated 
with the same courtesy and serious attention as he 
gave to the head of the department. 

One of Mr. Seelig’s special hobbies was English 
pronunciation, and since I was new to the work, he 
would come in sometimes to see how I was getting on. 


HUGO SEELIG 271 


My children used to murder the language as I did 
when I was a child of Hester Street And I wanted 
to give them that better speech that the teachers in 
college had tried to knock into me. 

Sometimes my task seemed almost hopeless. 
There was Aby Zuker, the brightest eleven-year-old 
boy in my class of fifty. He had the neighbourhood 
habit of ending almost every sentence with ‘‘ain’t 
it.’ For his special home work I had given him a 
sentence with the words “‘isn’t it”’ to be written a 
hundred times. 

The next morning he brought it back and with a 
shining face declared, “‘I got it all right now, Teacher! 
Ain’t it?” 

“Oh, Aby!” I cried. “And you want to be a 
lawyer! Don’t you know the judges will laugh you 
out of court if you plead your case with ‘ain’t it’?” 

Poor Aby! His little fingers scratched his mop of 
red curls in puzzlement. From his drooping figure I 
turned, laughing, to the class. 

“Now, children, let’s see how perfectly we can 
pronounce the words we went over yesterday.” 

On the board I wrote, S-I-N-G. 

*“Aby! Pronounce this word.” 

“‘Sing-gha,” said Aby. 

*Sing,”’ I corrected. 

*Sing-gha,” came from Aby again. 

“Rosy Stein! You can do better. Show our 
lawyer how to speak. Make a sentence with the 
word ‘sing.’”’ 


272 BREAD GIVERS 


“The boids sing-gha.” 

“Rosy, say bird.” 

“Boid,”’ repeated small Rosy with great’ distinct- 
ness. “Boid.” 

“Wrong still,” I laughed. ‘Children, how do you 
pronounce this?” And I wrote hastily on the board, 
OIL. 

“Earl,” cried the class, triumphantly. 

“You know how to make the right sounds for these 
words, but you put them in the opposite places.” 
And I began to drill them in pronunciation. In the 
middle of the chorus, I heard a little chuckle. I 
turned to see Mr. Seelig himself, who had quietly 
entered the room and stood enjoying the performance. 
{ returned his smile and went right on. 

“You try it again, Rosy. The birds sing-gg.”’ 

“Sing,” corrected Mr. Seelig, softly. 

There it was. I was slipping back into the ver- 
nacular myself. In my embarrassment, I tried again 
and failed. He watched me asI blundered on. The 
next moment he was close beside me, the tips of his 
cool fingers on my throat. ‘‘Keep those muscles 
still until you have stopped. Now say it again,” he 
commanded. And I turned pupil myself and pro- 
nounced the word correctly. 

As he was leaving the room he turned to me with 
great gentleness and said, ““When you dismiss the 
class, will you step into my office? I must see you.” 

The door closed. I tried to go on with the work, 
but my mind kept going round and round the one 


HUGO SEELIG 273 


thought, ‘‘I’m going to see him at three. What has 
he to say to me? Was something wrong with my 
work? And yet he seemed pleased and so gentle.” 

His face. The features—all fineness and strength. 
The keen, kind gray eyes. A Jewish face, and yet 
none of the greedy eagerness of Hester Street any 
more. It was the face of a dreamer, set free in the 
new air of America. Not like Father with his eyes 
on the past, but a dreamer who had found his work 
among us of the East Side. 

For the next hour I was more rattle-brained than 
my worst children. How could I come down to 
geography and spelling? I kept looking at the clock, 
counting the minutes to three. 

The bell rang. Thank God! It was time to dis- 
miss the class. 

I took a quick look at myself in the mirror, pow- 
dered my face, straightened my hair, and hurried to 
Mr. Seelig’s office. 

The moment I stepped into the room I| was brought 
to my senses by the cold, business-like atmosphere. 
Mr. Seelig rose from his chair. Gravely, without 
even a word of greeting, he handed me an opened 
letter. ‘‘Perhaps you had better read this.”’ And 
this is what I read: 


To THe Mr. Principat, ScHooL FoR THE PUBLIC. 

I want you to know about Sara Smolinsky who lets her own 
father starve and no rent. So he should be thrown in the street 
to shame and to laughter for the whole world. Is it not a dis- 
grace for the schools from America that you have a teacherin learn- 


274 BREAD GIVERS 


ing the children who is such a mean stingy to her own blood? 
If you have the fear of God in your heart, you will yourself see 
that at least half her wages should go to her poor old father who 
is a smarter man as she is a teacherin 


Every drop of blood seemed to leave my heart. 
My first impulse was to cry out to him, “It’s false! 
All false!”” and pour out to him the whole story of 
my wretched life. But I simply stood there trem- 
bling like a guilty thing. How could I ever make 
clear to him my father? 

The blackness upon me was like the last gasp of 
drowning. . . . It’s the end. He despises me. 
He’ll send me from his school. 

Mr. Seelig must have seen how I stood crushed with 
shame. For when I looked up, his head was turned. 
He was busy reading papers on his desk, as if he had 
forgotten that I was there. 

I fled from the room. Did he call me? I thought 
he spoke my name. But I had no strength to turn 
and look at him. 

My hate for Father, which Mother’s death had 
softened, boiled up in me like poison. Never would 
I look at him or his wife again. A blackmailer—a 
blood-sucker—that’s what she was! This disgrace 
which they had heaped on me was the bottom end. 
I wanted to tear the roots of my father out of my 
flesh and bones, force my heart and brain to blot him 
out of my soul. But through that night of suffering, 
even hate bled out of me. I was a ruined thing 
without purpose—without hope. I was no more. 


HUGO SEELIG a8 


The next day was lead. Mechanically, I dragged 
my feet to school. Mechanically, I went through 
the routine of the class work. But the children were 
so much dead wood in front of me. What I was say- 
ing to them, or what they were answering, made no 
difference. I was so tired, I saw nothing, heard 
nothing, and yet what was left of me was waiting for 
the worst to happen—condemned to lose my job—my 
life—condemned by him. 

Three o’clock came. The blow had not yet fallen. 
To-day, at least, I could get back to my little place 
and hide myself from my shame. ‘The children 
seemed to crawl out of the room instead of running as 
usual. Aby Zucker and Rosy Stein lingered with 
questions about their home work. It was as if they 
were trying to spite my misery. 

At last they were all out. And yet I had no energy 
tomove. Istood paralyzed, waiting. . . . Sud- 
denly, my breath stopped! There! Mr. Seelig. I 
felt him come in and I couldn’t look up. 

Let him dismiss me. I was dead anyway. .. . 
After a moment, I dared lift my eyes. Why, he was 
smiling! 

“I have a compliment for you. Mrs. Stein says 
that Rosy is a changed girl since she has been in 
your class.” 

I just couldn’t speak. It was all I could do to 
meet his eyes. That dreadful letter! He seemed to 
have forgotten all about it. He was still my friend! 

We walked out of the building together. At the 


276 BREAD GIVERS 


street corner he turned to me. ‘‘Do you take the L 
or car?”’ he asked. 

“I usually walk home.”’ 

**So do I,” he smiled. “I think we go in the same 
direction.” 

We fell into step and for many blocks not a word 
passed between us. I only felt an enveloping friend- 
liness going out of his heart to mine. A sudden 
commotion! Wild shrieks jerked us out of ourselves 
to the street around us. A little boy who ran madly 
into the middle of the street for his rolling marble 
was caught in the crowding traffic. Mr. Seelig and 
I rushed over in one breath and dragged him almost 
from under the wheels of a racing truck. 

Before we could get to the curb, a woman, weeping 
and laughing hysterically, snatched the child from us. 

“Gazlin! Murderer! How you blacken me my 
days!” she cried, shaking and cuffing him. “ Tat- 
teniu! Only to get rid of this devil once for all!” 
It was some moments before we could rescue the child 
from the animal fury of the mother. 

And afterwards we became aware that we had 
gripped each other’s hands fiercely. Something in 
what happened had drawn us suddenly together. 
We were too filled for small talk the rest of the way, 
and before we knew it we had reached Thirtieth 
Street and stood before my house. 

“We've arrived. I think both of us deserve some 
tea after our exciting adventure.” 

I fairly ran in my joy and rushed to my room a 


HUGO SEELIG 277 


whole flight of stairs ahead of him to see that every- 
thing was in order. I snatched up the stockings and 
wash I had drying on the radiator and threw them in 
the basket. 

All excitement, I opened the door and showed off 
my room for the first time. My plain room that I 
loved, how would it look to another? Anxiously, I 
watched him as he looked slowly around. ‘“‘How 
beautiful and empty!” he cried. 

[ sighed with happiness. ‘‘ Years ago, I vowed to 
myself that if I could ever tear myself out of the dirt 
I’d have only clean emptiness.” 

He nodded understandingly. How great it felt to 
break my long loneliness and warm up my home with 
‘another presence. I lit the lamp under the tea kettle 
for the first time for two instead of one. 

**T like your nice dishes,” he said, as we sat down. 

“Because I live alone, I must have my table 
beautiful. It’s company.” 

We got to talking about ourselves, our families, the 
Old World from which we came. To our surprise 
we found that our beginnings were the same. We 
came from the same government in Poland, from 
villages only a few miles apart. Our families had 
uprooted themselves from the same land and adven- 
tured out to the New World. 

For a moment we looked at each other, breathless 
with the wonderful discovery. “‘ Landsleute—coun- 
trymen!”’ we cried, in one voice, our hands reaching 
out to each other. 


278 BREAD GIVERS 


“What do you remember of Poland?” he asked, in 
a low voice. 

‘“Nothing—nothing at all. Back of me, it’s like 
black night.”’ ; | 

“‘T remember a little,” he said. “The mud hut 
where we lived, the cows, the chickens, and all of us 
living in one room. I remember the dark, rainy 
morning we started on our journey, how the whole 
village, old and young, turned out to say good-bye. 
When we came to the seaport, I couldn’t eat their 
bread, because it had no salt. We thought we 
should starve going to America. But as soon as we 
got on the ship, they gave us so much that first meal 
that we couldn’t touch another bite for days.” 

After that, all differences dropped away. We 
talked one language. We had sprung from one soil. 

“How strangely things work out,” I said, with a) 
new feeling of familiarity. “You got this black- 
mailing letter. And yet here we are born friends.” 

“Why shouldn’t we be? You and I, we are of one 
blood.” 

We fell into a silence. All the secret places of my 
heart opened at the moment. And then the whole 
story of my life poured itself out of me to him. 
Father, Mother, my sisters. And Father’s wife, with 
her greed for diamond earrings. As I talked my 
whole dark past dropped away from me. Such a 
sense of release! Now I could go on and on—I could 
never again be lonely! 

**I understood everything the moment I read that 


| 


| HUGO SEELIG 279 


| letter,” he said. “It’s queer, how people get to 
_ knowoneanother. That mean letter, instead of turn- 
ing me against you, drew me to you. I knew you 
weren't that kind. As for your father, I know just 
the kind of an old Jew heis. After all, it’s from him 
that you got the iron for the fight you had to make to 
be what you are now.” 
I looked at him in wide wonder. “What a mind- 
reader you are! You understand not only me but 
even my father whom you’ve never yet seen. He 


999. 


used to call me ‘ Blut-und-Etsen. a 

And then I told him of the hard heart. How I 
had to cut out everything soft in my life only to sur- 
vive. 

He took hold of both my hands. “You hard! 
You’ve got the fibre of a strong, live spruce tree that 
grows in strength the more it’s knocked about by the 
wind. When men go to sea they set the spruce for 
their mast.” 

We had lost all sense of time and it was dusk when 
he rose to go. 

**Next time when we are together we must spend 
it outdoors,” he said, “and try to remember more 
about Poland.” 

Next time! So there was going to be a next time, 
my heart rejoiced! 

I stood looking at his chair feeling him still in the 
room for hours after, and my last feeling as I closed 
my eyes was: I’m no longer alone. I’m no longer 
alone! 


280 BREAD GIVERS ‘y 


In the early morning when I swept my broom 
halted at Hugo Seelig’s muddy footprint. He leaped 
up at me out of that spot on the floor. I felt again 
his voice, I saw again his eyes as he looked at me. 
“You and I—we are of one blood.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN 


(): day, three months later, I walked out of 


school. It was a cold, drizzling rain, but my 
heart sang with the gladness of sunshine. 
That night Hugo was coming to have dinner with me. 

Why were my years of lonely struggle unlit by the 
hope that I might some day be as happy as I was now? 
Why did I ever feel cheated and robbed of the life 
that more fortunate girls seemed to have? And here 
I had so much more than my heart could hold! | 

But as I walked along through Hester Street to- 
ward the Third Avenue L, my joy hurt like guilt. 
Lines upon lines of pushcart peddlers were crouching 
in the rain. Backs bent, hands in their sleeves, ears 
under their collars, grimy faces squeezed into frozen 
masks. They were like animals helpless against the 
cold, pitiless weather. 

Wasn’t there some way that I could divide my joy 
with these shivering pushcart peddlers, grubbing for 
peanies inthe rain? I felt like Carnegie and Rocke- 
feller trying to give away the millions they could not 
spend. Why was my happiness so hard to be en- 
joyed? I felt like one sitting down to a meal while 
all the people around him were howling hungry. 

281 


282 + +~BREAD GIVERS 


I felt as if all the beauty of the world that ever 
was ached in me to pour itself out on the people 
around. [I felt like the sun so afire with life that it 
can’t help but shine on the whole world—the just 
and the unjust alike. 

A longing to see Father came over me. What had 
happened to him in all those months? I could stifle 
my conscience no longer. Wife or no wife, I had to 
see what I could do for him. Even his wife I could 
not hate any more. For after all, it was her black- 
mailing letter that had opened Hugo’s eyes to me. . 

Poor woman! Poor people of Hester Street! 
With new pity I looked at them. [hurried on, but 
the verve of my winged walk was dulled by the thick, 
shuffling tread of those who walked beside me. My 
own shoulders, that I always held so straight, sagged 
because of the bowed backs that hemmed me in. 

The sadness of it chilled the glow I usually felt 
when I got to my peaceful room. Hugo’s red roses 
on my table—almost I could have wept for them. So 
full and rich with lovely colour, so heartlessly perfect, 
so shamelessly beautiful that it hurt to look at them. 
I didn’t want them if they were only for me. 

I leaned out of the open window and saw the city 
as it lay below me, sharp and black and grimy. The 
smoke of those houses kept rising sullenly, until I 
couldn’t help but breathe the soot of that far-reaching 
tragedy below. 

Ach! You—with your always guilty conscience! 
Why can’t you be happy when you’re lucky enough to 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN’ 283 


have a little respite of happiness? Why do you have 
to make yourself so miserable because for the first 
time in your life you know a little bit of love? Fool! 
Get yourself dressed. 

I threw off my dark school dress and put on my new 
challis. Iturned tothe mirror. How becoming was 
that soft green with that touch of rose embroidery. 
How well it suited my pale skin and dark hair that 
I learned to braid so becomingly around my head! 
I hope Hugo will like it. 

The telephone rang. It was Hugo, telling me that 
he was held up by the Board of Education meeting 
and asking me to join him at Orloff’s Café on East 
Broadway. 

So happy | wasina moment. Forgotten were the 
sorrows of the world. How could I most quickly get 
to him? I ran to the car. But when I got off at 
Grand Street, [ was blocked by the usual jam of 
evening trafic. I stood impatiently on the corner 
with a crowd of people, waiting for the policeman to 
stop the stream of trucks and taxis. As his whistle 
sounded and we rushed for the other side, I was 
shoved against an old man with a tray of chewing- 
gum. The sudden impact knocked his wares out of 
his hands. In spite of my excited haste to get to 
Hugo, I stopped to help the old man pick up the roll- 
ing packages. With my fresh handkerchief, I wiped 
the mud from each piece and dropped it back into his 
tray. 

“Thank you, lady!” 


284 BREAD GIVERS 


At the sound of that voice, my heart leaped as 
though a red-hot knife had been thrust into it. The 
old man’s face was half hidden in the collar of his 
shabby coat, his bony fingers trembled as he recov- 
ered his soiled stock. But I knew that face, those 
hands. 

“Father! You—you—here?” 

He fell back against the door and stared at me, the 
sorrows of the whole world in his tragic eyes. 

“Well—well,”’ he jerked out, his teeth clacking to- © 
gether with the cold. ‘“‘Let the world see the shame 
—the shame that my daughters heaped on me. 
What’s an old father to heartless American children? 
Have they any religion? Any fearofGod? Dothey 
know what it means, ‘Honour thy father’? What 
else can I do to support myself and her? She drove 
me out to bring her in money.” 

“You let that woman boss you?” I burst out, 
furiously. 

“Have I children like other people’s children who 
carry their father like a crown on their heads? Have 
they provided for me as God-fearing children provide 
for an old father? With all I have done for my 
daughters—the morals I soaked into them, the relig- 
ion I preached into them from the day they were born 
—yet they leave me in my old age, as they left King 
Lear—broken—forgotten. . . . God! What have 
I sinned, to come to this? I, Reb Smolinsky—down 
among the pushcarts. i 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN | 285 


How changed he was! How old and suffering! 
He, the master—with the stoop of poverty on his 
back! And I had been so happy! 

He began to cough, shivering with the cold. ‘His 
days are counted,’ my heart cried. Who would 
nurse him and watch over him? That woman? 
Mother’s dying eyes rose before me. Her last words, 
**Be good to Father. I leave him in his old age, when 
he needs me most. Helpless as a child he is.” I 
looked at Father with Mother’s eyes. I saw in him 
only the child who needed mothering—who must be 
protected from the hard cruelties of the world. 

“Come,” I said, fighting back the tears. ‘“‘It’s | 
raining hard. Let’s better go.” 

“Where? Where shall I go? In your house shall 
I go?” 

“Tl take you home. [ll see that you get what 
you need.” 

I took his arm and led him away. He trembled 
against me as we trudged along. When I looked into 
his face, his eyes were half closed and his lips blue. 
He did not speak. He walked on, in silence, proud 
as ever. 

At his door I stopped. All visions of doing things 
for him were checked by that door. That woman! 
How I dreaded facing her! But he needs me! To 
hell with my feelings. He needs me! 

I opened the door with determination and walked 
in. Thank God! She was not around! I could 


286 BREAD GIVERS 


help him. He sank back weakly in his chair, and he 
let me take off his wet shoes and the torn rags of 
stockings that clung to his old feet. 

Supporting himself on me, he staggered to the bed. 
As I tucked the covers around him, I felt the shrunken 
bones where once the rounded flesh had been. How 
he had wasted since Mother had died! How neg- 
lected he looked! How helpless! He’s like a poor 
orphan with a stepmother. I had hated him. But 
where was that hate now? Whom else had he in this 
world if not me? How could I leave him in his 
need? 

‘Tears strained in my throat as I bent over him, 
offering him some hot tea. But he pushed away the. 


elass, muttering deliriously. In a panic, I left him 


and ran for the doctor. . . . How could I have 
hated him and tried to blot him out of my life? Can 
I hate my arm, my hand that is part of me? Cana 
tree hate the roots from which it sprang? Deeper 
than love, deeper than pity, is that oneness of the 
flesh that’s in him and inme. Who gave me the fire, 
the passion, to push myself up from the dirt? If I 
grow, if I rise, if I ever amount to something, is 
it not his spirit burning in me? 

When I returned, the woman was there. She met 
me with hostile daggers in her eyes and a shower of 
reproaches. 

*““Now, when your father is already dying. Now 
you come to him,” she shouted. ‘‘When weeks and 
months passed and we were starving, you did not 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN 287 


come near. Now, when he has only a few hours to 
live, now you come, dear, kind, good-hearted, dutiful 
daughter.” 

I paid no attention to her but went to Father’s 
bedside. He was burning with fever, groaning and 
gasping for breath. 

“And what'll become of me now that he’s dying?” 
she began to how] at the top of her voice. 

The doctor came and examined him. As I saw 
him sitting by the bed, I realized that he was the same 
doctor who had attended to Mother. I recalled the 
day when he had advised her to have her foot ampu- 
tated. Mother’s dying eyes. ‘The gray, cold face in 
the cofin. ‘Through fogs of fear I struggled to think 
how best to take care of Father. Should I hire a 
nurse or get a leave of absence from school? But the 
woman’s howling lamentations would not let me 
think. 

“What has God against me?”’ she wailed. “What 
sin have I done? Haven’t I always been a good 
woman, an honest woman, a virtuous woman? 
Haven’t I nursed my first husband to his grave? 
Haven't I done all my duties to him, my second hus- 
band? God! My God! Why is it coming to me to 
be a widow the second time?” 

The doctor stopped her impatiently. ‘“‘This is no 
time for noise,” he said. “‘If you want your husband 
to get well, give him quiet.” 

It was not necessary to get a nurse, he thought, or 
even for me to be absent from school. The woman 


288 BREAD GIVERS 


could wait on him the first part of the day and I 
could take my turn in the afternoon and evening. 

The minute school was over, next day, I rushed 
back. 

‘Your father is worse,” his wife greeted me. “He 
refuses to take his medicine. Maybe he can’t swal- 
low any more. He’sanold man. And it’s his end.” 

In her eyes [ seemed to see a look of secret triumph. 
**Soon,” those eyes said, “he'll die and I’ll have his 
lodge money to marry again.”” Shuddering, I turned 
from her and hurried over to Father. 

Yes. He was worse. His eyes were closed. His 
cheeks burning. 

“Father!” I stroked his hot hand, gently. ‘“‘You 
must take this medicine. It will take away your 
fever and stop your cough.” 

His dull eyes opened and gazed up at me pitifully. 

“Tl take it from you. Only stay with me,” he 
begged. “I’m afraid to take the medicine from her. 
She might do something.” His fingers closed on my 
arm to pull me nearer to him. But the strength had 
gone from that dominating hand. In weakness and 
helplessness the poor flesh clung desperately to me. 
“Tm all alone,’ he whispered. “She isn’t like 
Mother. She’s only waiting for my death.” 

A cough shook him. He groaned with pain. 

At the sound of his voice she hurried out of the 
kitchen. ‘“‘Where does it hurt you? Are you feeling 
worse!’’ she asked. 

“No. No. I’m better.”’ 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN 289 


In her presence he tried to control his groans and 
hide his pain. He even struggled to sit up. His hand 
clutched at the bosom of my dress. “Bring me my 
book,” he whispered. I brought it to him. His 
feeble fingers caressed the worn, yellowed pages of 
his beloved book of Job. With his last strength, his 
faded eyes strained to drink in the words that were 
his life. 

Anxiety and lack of sleep had exhausted me. And 
in spite of myself, I dozed off at the foot of his bed. 
Then through the haze of semi-consciousness, I heard 
the woman pleading, slyly, “Tell me only, where 
do you keep your lodge papers? Is there any one who 
owes you money? Maybe you got yet insurance on 
your life?”’ 

“Leave me alone,” his faint voice reached me. “I 
breathe yet.” 

“But you’re in God’s hands. You can’t tell what 
may happen to you the next minute. Don’t forget 
it, you re a very sick man, and very old. You haven’t 
the strength to fight a sickness like a younger man.” 

In a flash I was awake and on my feet. Never 
again while Father was alive would I leave him alone 
with her. 

Hugo quickly got me a leave of absence from 
school. Night and day, until he was well, I stayed in 
that house with my father. 

Day by day, I won his confidence and a sort of 
dependent affection. His old talkativeness returned. 
He told me legends of the Bible and explained the 


290 BREAD GIVERS © 


wisdom of the Torah. In more intimate moments, 
he told me of his unhappiness with his wife. 

“The sages of the Talmud said, a man has a right 
to divorce his wife if she don’t salt him his soup to his | 
taste. And mine is guilty of worse offences. She’s 
selfish and wants to live for herself, instead of living 
only for her husband. . . . I thought if I’d 
marry a young one, she’d have strength to work for 
me,” he went on. ‘But she only wants pleasure and 
luxuries of the flesh. So maybe it would be better 
for me to go to an Old Men’s Home where I could 
spend my last days in peace instead of living with a 
false wife who reminds me always that I’m old.” 

To please him, I went next day to the Old Men’s 
Home. It was a beautiful building, but the moment 
I entered, the loveless, inhuman, institutional atmos- 
phere struck me like a blow. ‘They showed me the 
place. Clean. Cold. Choking with orderliness. 
Beds all in a row, spotless, creaseless, like beds in an 
orphan asylum. I saw groups of old men sitting life- 
lessly on hard, wooden benches. 

“How much better off they are here than living by 
themselves,” said the official, rubbing his hands. 
“They eat only food that’s best for them, and their 
meals and their sleep are at regular hours. It’s likea 
sanitarium for their last days.” 

But the very things the man praised up to me made 
me shudder. 

No. This institutional prison was not for my 
father. Never would I allow him to have his will 


_ MAN BORN OF WOMAN 201 


broken in such a place. He who all his life had his 
own way must continue to have it to the end of his 
days. 

If he wanted to leave his wife, let him go to board 

somewhere where he can have his own room, his books 
around him, free to come and go as he wishes. Here, 
in this prison, were rules and regulations that he could 
never endure. My father would never stoop to ask 
permission to go out and to report when he got back. 
He would never obey the iron rule not to upset his 
bed all day long. He would want to go to bed or get 
up at any time of day or night, as he pleased. He 
should have a place that suited him. And not with 
his wife. 
_ I came back to Father’s house. As I opened the 
door, I could not believe my eyes. There was his 
wife on her knees, putting on his shoes for him. She 
was lacing them patiently and making the double 
knots, just as he dictated. I watched her with wide 
eyes. This was something new. It took me a min- 
ute or two totake it allin. J suddenly realized that 
this woman I hated was necessary to him. He could 
not live alone in a boarding house any more than in 
the Old Men’s Home. He needed a wife to wait on 
him. It cameto methat if we tried not to hate her, 
to be a little kind to her, maybe she would be more 
faithful to Father. 

I followed her into the kitchen and put ten dollars 
into her hand. “I’m going to give you this each 
week, and I’ll see that my sisters should give you 


292 BREAD GIVERS 


ten dollars more regularly. Only take good care of 
Father.” 

Her eyes glowed with gladness as she seized the 
bills. ‘Sure,’ she said. “If I only get enough 
money in my hands, I know how to live good. You 
think I want him to die? Is it nice for me to bury 
already my second husband? But how could we 
live, if you children had no hearts?”’ 

She became a new person, as the money came to 
her regularly. Ina very few months the coveted ear- 
rings appeared in her thick ears. She got what she 
wanted inthis world. A gloating look of smiling satis- 
faction came into her face. As she waddled with her 
basket to the market, she tossed her head coquettishly 
from side to side, showing off the glittering earrings 
to the passers-by. 

Soon we all began to visit Father’s house, and met 
his wife without hostility. We tried to make up with 
presents for the lack of real, warm friendliness that 
we could not feel. 

Once I brought her a box of fruit for the New Year 
holiday. And in return, she made me taste her apple 
strudel. At that moment most of the old hostility 
vanished from my heart. Next time I came with 
Hugo. 

“Father, this is Mr. Seelig,”’ I said, watching to see 
how the two would take to each other. 

Father shook hands and scrutinized him inquisi- 
tively. ‘Mr. Seelig? From where do you come?” 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN 293 


“Warsher Gubernie—a long time ago,’ Hugo 
added, with a smile. 

“And your parents with you here? By what do 
you work?” 

** Mr. Seelig is a principal of a school,” I interposed. 

*“So—a principal?’’ Father shook hands again 
with new respect. ‘“‘Do they pay you good?”’ 

“Well,”’ sighed Hugo, getting into Father’s spirit, 
“I make a living. But I’m not smart enough yet. 
And I came to ask you, would you care to teach me 
Hebrew?”’ 

“Hebrew? An American young man, a principal, 
and wants to learn Hebrew? And you want me to 
teach you?”’ 

“If a learned man like you would care to take a 
beginner like me.”’ 

Father leaned back in his chair. The old dream 
look came back into his glowing eyes. ‘‘Listento 
me, Mr. Seelig—young man! I want you to know I 
don’t trust much American young men. They’re all 
deniers of God. One day is the same to them as an- 
other. Ask them the difference between a plain 
Monday and the Sabbath and they’ll gape at you.”’ 

His eyes grew soft and moist. He looked most 
gratefully from Hugo toward me. “I thought that 
in America we were all lost. Jewishness is no Jew- 
ishness. Children are no children. Respect for 
fathers does not exist. And yet my own daughter 
who is not a Jewess and not a gentile—brings me a 


294 BREAD GIVERS 


young man—and whom? An American. And for 
what? To learn Hebrew. From whom? From me, 


Lord of the Universe! You never forsake your faith- 


ful ones.” 

His old eyes widened with a glance of sudden under- 
standing and he looked from Hugo to me and from 
me back to Hugo. 

“Even my daughter with the hard heart has come 
to learn that the words of our Holy Torah are the 
only words of life. These words were true ages and 
ages ago and will yet be true for ages and ages to come. 
Our forefathers have said, ‘A woman without a man 
is less than nothing. A woman without a man can 
never enter Heaven.” 

The old pride flamed up in his face. 

“Woman!” he called, ecstatically, to his wife. 
“Show only this American young man all my holy 
books in the bedroom.” 

Hugo’s eyes sought mine. With a look of awe, he 
followed the woman to the other room. 

Delighted with the outcome I turned to Father. 
*“Aren’t you glad,” I whispered, “that you didn’t 
go to a home, or a lonely room in a boarding house? 
Here you have your books, and all the comforts of 
your own house, and her, ready to wait on you.” 

He wagged his head for a silent moment; then an 
unbeaten fierceness came into his eyes. “Yes,” he 
sighed, ruefully. “‘It’s like living in a beautiful 
garden with a snake in it. Never will I finish out 
my days with that woman! Can fire and water live 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN 295 


together? Neither can a man of God live with a 
cow, an Ishah Rah.” 

With his every word my high spirits sank. My 
breathing spell of happiness was over. Just as I was 
beginning to feel safe and free to go on to a new life 
with Hugo, the old burden dragged me back by the 
hair. Was there no place in the whole world for 
Father? My home! Must I give it up to him? 
But with him there, it would not be home for me. I 
suddénly realized that I had come back to where I 
had started twenty years ago when I began my 
fight for freedom. But in my rebellious youth, I 
thought I could escape by running away. And now 
I realized that the shadow of the burden was always 
following me, and here I stood face to face with it 
again. 

“Father!” I ventured, hesitatingly. “Would you 
care to live with me?” 

He looked at me, and in that look I felt the full 
force of his unbending spirit. “Can a Jew and a 
Christian live under one roof? Have you forgotten 
your sacrilege, your contempt for God’s law, even on 
the day of your mother’s death? I must keep my. 
Sabbath holy. I cannot have my eating contamin- 
ated with your carelessness.” He paused. “But if 
you Il promise to keep sacred all that is sacred to me,” 
he went on, in an attempt to be tolerant, “then, 
maybe, I'll see. [ll think it over.” 

I almost hated him again as I felt his tyranny— 
the tyranny with which he tried to crush me as a 


296 BREAD GIVERS 


child. Then suddenly the pathos of this lonely old 
man pierced me. In a world where all is changed, 
he alone remained unchanged—as tragically isolate 
as the rocks. All that he had left of life was his 
_ fanatical adherence to his traditions... It was within 
my power to keep lighted the flickering candle of his 
life for him. Could I deny him this poor service? 
Unconsciously, my hand reached out for his. 

The look of bitterness faded from his face and he 
opened the Bible, his eternal consolation. Instantly 
he was transported to his other world. 

Hugo returned. And Father glanced up with stern 
absent-mindedness from his book to bid us good-bye. 

I could hardly wait till we got out of the room to 
tell Hugo about Father. 

“Of course, the old man must come with us,” he 
exclaimed. 

“Do you realize what you’re saying? If he lives 
with us we'll lose our home.”’ 

“Not at all. Our home will the richer if your 
father comes with us.” 

I laughed at his easy enthusiasm. He talked like 
a Tolstoyan. 

So there it was, the problem before us—the pro- 
blem of Father—still unsolved. 

In the hall, we paused, held by the sorrowful ca- 
dences of Father’s voice. 

“Man born of woman is of few days and full of 
trouble.” 

The voice lowered and grew fainter till we could 


MAN BORN OF WOMAN 297 


not hear the words any more. Still we lingered for 
the mere music of the fading chant. Then Hugo’s 
grip tightened on my arm and we walked on. But 
I felt the shadow still there, over me. It wasn’t just 
my father, but the generations who made my father 
whose weight was still upon me. 


THE END 


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